ESPN Feild Graphic
 

I think ESPN has aired enough Fistpitch Softball that they should have a field graphic (when showing who is play wear on the defense) without grass on the infield. :rolleyes:

Mechele calls it a rubber. ha ha

You would also think by now that they would know there is no pitching mound on the field, either.

All my children can tell how clueless the announcers are. Even the 11 year old.

When Michelle Smith started talking about hip angles (in degrees) my DD-the-pitcher starts rolling her eyes.

OK, thats lame. EVERYONE calls it a mound, pitchers, coaches, etc - get over it already. That is the common term for the pitching area. Thats what they call it. It gets old hearing over and over "Theres no mound out there" or "its not a rubber."

If your 11 d/ds cant learn something about pitching from Michele Smith, theres no hope for you and that is about as ignorant thing as I've ever heard. You dont just miracalize gold medals around your neck. You dont just accidently become 1 of the top 3 pitchers of all time.

But I agree... They could at least use a softball graphic on ESPN.

ditto Wade

I understand that Michelle Smith was (maybe still is) an excellent pitcher. Yes, obviously more accomplished than my DD.

However, when she starts pulling out a protractor and saying you have to get a 52 degree hip angle... Actually, you had to hear the way she bumbled about the degrees... first it was 42... then it was 45... then it was 45 to 52... Yes, openning and closing the hips properly is essential, but it reminds me of Charlie Brown's adage "Those who can't do, teach." I think there's a corallary, "Those who can do, can't all teach."

And it wasn't the 11 year old rolling her eyes about this one. She no longer pitches and has gone over to the dark side... soccer.

Then the next day she said something that sounded equally clueless about Jenny Finch's rise.

And those that dont listen and learn, go play soccer. :D

Absitively, posalutely 100% correct. Accomplishments and deeds are no more a qualification to claim knowledge than longevity is for a good umpire.

Rant on! (Anyone who is afraid of being annoyed, please skip to next post :D)

There are huge gaps in knowing that something works, knowing how something works and knowing why it works in the manner it does and knowing how to operate/manuever/use it.

Michelle Smith was a helluva ball player, but that does that mean she knows everything there is about how everything on the ball field breaks down? And that damn "tight rotation" of the pitch! Anyone ever see a loose rotation? Does that mean the ball actually take more of a spiral path to the plate? ;)

Anyone who believes that being an athlete means one is qualified as an all-knowing guru of the sport needs to let go of the tree, put down the joint and take off the rose-colored glasses! Damn, I probably just caused another wildfire in CA!

Just watching the NBA or baseball programming on ESPN should give you an idea of exactly what some of these "all-star" players really know about the game. They can offer personal experiences and comparative opinions, but when it comes to cause and effect, rules or management of the game, they talk loud and fast and pray they just blew their BS by you.

Don't get me wrong, there are many who are intelligent, but that is demonstrated by actually stepping back and learning more about the game than they ever did on the field. Two of the best I can think of are Tom Jackson and Ron Jaworski. Both entered the analytic field quietly, but have studied and learned more about their game and how it works. Ron Jaworski came out of YSU and did okay with the Eagles. I believe if he knew than what he knows now, his career may have been a bit more heralded.

Much like players who become umpires. I have yet to meet one who hasn't conceded they more than doubled their knowledge of the game in the first five weeks and that is just during rule clinics!

No, there is not grass on a softball infield and other than the bases and maybe the pitcher's plate, it is flat with no "mounds" to be found.

"Yeah, but everybody says that". Does that make it right? What if everyone said you were a dick? Does that make it right? What if everyone called me anal? Does that make it......wait a minute!! :cool:

Plenty of people involved with the game for years who insists that the hands are part of the bat? Should we just say, "okay, enough people have said that so it must be true and we are wrong!"

Yep, that makes a lot of sense.

Rant off! Thanks for your patience.

Fixed it for you. ;)

I know of a complex nearby that has eight fields, and everyone of them have a pitching plate that is actually made of wood. I have always considered this an odd material for a pitching plate, but that is what they are all made of us. Does this mean, following your reasoning, that while I am at that complex, I should refer to the pitching plate as a "woody?" :rolleyes:

I guess you come out early to help set up the field to the coach can lay the wood where you tell him/her?

Played in RI a few years back and their remote city fields (Providence) at which we played had a wooden PP AND HP with the head of four large bolts exposed on top of it. Really had to think twice about sliding at home :D

If you do, pardon me as I cringe every time she "toes the woody." Sounds like a kinky adult film...

So you can't have a "woody" and "rubber" at the same time?

Well I would call it a pitching plate. Were a coach or player to refer to it as a rubber, even though it is made of wood, I would not twist on it. When a coach calls it a mound, I do not get frantic. It means nothing. Its a term.

It is simply an irrelevent issue made of a common term that some umpires just LOVE to twist on. Maybe you all are bored. I got other things to concern myself.

Isnt the rule that they must toe the woody located within the mound?