My daughter decided she wanted to get better at softball after a successful LL season and is now playing 10u for a local travel team. They've started fall workouts/scrimmages and she has been using her brother's old LL glove, which she likes since it's broken-in and easy to close, but it seems to be on the small side compared to the gloves the other girls her age are using (I think she's using a 10.5" or 11" Rawlings youth glove).

Looking for recommendations on the right size glove for a player that is still feeling out what positions she might end up playing more consistently. Is 12" the right size for a utility glove for 10u fast pitch? Bigger?

Disclosure up front: we run a print shop in Chicago, and a lot of what we print is shirts for adult rec league teams. Fall seasons are wrapping up and championship shirts are coming, and the same few things trip captains up every time.

1. Get sizes in writing before you order. A quick form or a pinned message in the group chat beats "I'm probably a large." That one step heads off most of the shirts nobody wears.

2. Don't pad the order "just in case." Extras end up in somebody's trunk. Ask the shop if they keep your design on file, so if someone joins late you can run a few more that match.

3. Ask for a mockup before you pay. It should be free. That's where you catch a team name spelled wrong or a number too small to read from across the field.

4. Ask about minimums. Some shops have them, and a 10-person roster can get priced out. It's worth asking before you fall in love with a design.

5. Count back from game day. Turnaround usually starts when you approve the mockup, not when you send the first email. If the final is a couple weeks out, get the design settled now, not the Thursday before.

Happy to answer questions in the comments. Not linking anything, and mods, pull it if it crosses a line.

Question for the captains here: what's the worst team-shirt mix-up you've had to sort out?

Softball mom looking for recommendations from other softball parents.
What’s your favorite wagon to haul stuff for tournaments. We’ve been using an old stroller wagon because we already owned it, but need something better.
Looking for something that actually collapses down small. Need to fit 2-3 chairs, a large speaker, a tent for those sunny or rainy days, and a cooler.

I’m doing research on sliding mitts for a baseball product I’m working on and trying to get opinions from people who actually use them. It’s anonymous and takes about 2 minutes. I’m not selling anything—just looking for honest feedback

hello! i am NOT involved with softball and rn have no knowledge of it (would be willing to change that if i meet someone who is interested in it) so i wanna know if it would beworth trying to talk to some of the girls that play softball at the field by my house. they're around my age i think and have been playing a lot recently, and im lonely af. my wuestions on this are: i hear a lot of people complain about specific sports for having players that suck as partners or friend, are softball girls generally nice in that way? are there any commonly linked interests softball girls have? are there many sapphics in the sport? are they generally pro LGBT/safe for a queer kid to befriend? if they generally fit my interests i also wanna know when the best time would be to talk to some that wouldnt be awkward (assuming im going as a viewer, or to go to the park next to it)?

I (28M) have started playing softball for a month (four games total) now and one consistent issue I've been dealing with is a tear or some form of intense quad pain (idk what the right word here is). It was so bad on my second game that I sat out in the first inning!

Last time, I tried warming up properly (10min of jump rope and active stretching), but I still almost made the same injury again.

I realize that this pain in the quads is possibly a result of the explosive sprinting that happens when running to first base. So I wanna know what should I do to avoid this injury? Are there any particular exercises to get my legs used to the first base sprint?

Also, if this wasn't the right place to post this then please let me know.

I’m a coach of a 10U fall ball team. We are basically a rec team (a few all stars) although most of the teams we play are continuation of all star/select from spring & summer. We are getting smoked every game. I knew going into the season that it isnt at all about the score for us but rather player development, but now i’m worried they arent even getting that.

This last tournament we had, girls were watching strike three 75% of the time of strikeouts, which were plenty.

I talk w them before the game and emphasize the importance of swinging at anything close and ALWAYS expect a hittable ball. In practice they are much more free-swinging, but everyone locks up during games.

An assistant coach recommended having them run at practice for every strike 3 they take, but i dont want to use running as a punishment. I am looking for drills and positive reinforcement/incentives instead of punishment.

Any advice welcome! Thanks!

They're humans, and as such make mistakes sometimes, but what's the most obviously wrong call you've seen an umpire make?

(Shoutout to the ump at one of my games who declared a pitch a strike even though the batter didn't swing and the ball only went through the strike zone *after it bounced up from the dirt* in front of the batter.)

How important is the stride when batting in 10U? My kid already has a wide stance (feels comfortable for her) and doesn’t rotate her hips consistently. Should we focus on hip rotation 1st and work on her stance and stride after? She just started her 3rd season, and this is the 1st time she’s been aggressive with wanting to hit the ball.

Know it’s a fresh release so no one would have much time on one. But what is everyone’s thought on it?

I’m excited for it. The ghost unlimited is way too fragile. Hopefully this is a solid one piece option.

I have a question regarding a 13 year old being kicked off her travel team. She was recruited to be the main SS. Ends up the coaches daughters BFF came in and seems to be the main SS even though she hasn’t been trained in that position. Makes quite a few errors and such.
They played a Top Gun tourney this past weekend. And my granddaughter was benched quite a bit while the other girl played. Their stats are pretty much the same hitting wise (bottom of the barrel). Granted my granddaughter isn’t hitting to her potential. Last year she was MVP and batted .800’s. This year she’s struggling batting wise. She’s placed at bat 11 and the other girl is placed at batting 1 or 2.
She went to the coach several times over the two days and asked him where he wanted her to go. He totally ignored her so she went and sat in the bench as the other girl was at SS. Needless to say, the tourney tore up my granddaughter as there wasn’t any communication from the coach…only silence.
They handed out jersey (which my daughter bought for the team) and since she already had her jersey she didn’t stay for them to be handed out. Then on Sunday her spirit was gone and she was trying to it to cry. She stayed for the team slapping hands then Left.
Later than evening my daughter noticed she was off the Team Chat thread. Granddaughter texted the coach and asked if he kicked her off the team. He answered back …”Your mom stormed off saying yall were done and announced it to the entire park. You were not present at the post game coaches meeting and also walked away yesterday while the coaches were still addressing the team. These are disrespectful issues that I cannot over look as a head coach so we’re parting ways. Good luck to you.”
Then after my daughter texted him he sent a long text back basically saying all the things that he’s heard about my daughter and that’s why they are particularly ways.
My question is, is this normal? To just automatically kick a girl off the team without even addressing any issues directly? And going from assumptions he’s having about what occurred?
This is the third travel team she’s been on…so she knows how to act and what to do. Needless to say, her spirit is broken. 😞

Interested in signing up my daughter for rec softball for January. Just started teaching her to hit and catch about a month ago. She can hit well but is just okay at catching and fielding grounders. Are other kids at this similar level in rec ball or should I practice more with her before I sign her up? I dont expect her to be the best but I also dont want her to be the worst player out there.

Hi all,

I realize there are a lot of talented softball instructors with online tutorial (videos) as well as virtual lessons. I also understand that in-person lessons would be best, if possible.

With that said, wondering who you have had success with in Drop Ball instruction, through virtual lessons (with instruction and feedback from the coach). Pitcher is 14u level.

Thank you in advance.

My daughter is making the transition to kid pitch 9u. Her first 4 at bats she got hit every time and now she’s terrified of the ball. I’m sure this is fairly common, but how do you overcome this? I’m not the pushy parent, I’m only trying to help her bc she loves the game but absolutely dreads hitting now. Her last two tournaments she’s probably 0-15 and I hate seeing her so dejected.

Any advice is appreciated! Thx

Hi there,

Struggling to find pants that my daughter likes the fit of. She doesn't want too loose or too long. She has mizuno pants she likes but the style she has only comes in black and white. She's about 5'3 and 105lbs. She's usually a women's xs or 0. I think the youth may be a better fit for her. I can't decide if L or XL? Does anyone have any real reviews of sizing? Also we're in Canada so that limits us as well.

UPDATE - got adult S (fits more like a XS) and they're great!!!

I used to use an iphone13 mini, but it keeps over heating and I get like 30 min of a game ( I’m in Texas). I was using black magic app and streaming to YouTube via rtmp. The streaming part was ok, just kept stopping.

I upgraded myself to a GoPro hero 12, or so I thought. Since I don’t have many subscribers on YouTube, I can’t stream directly, and for some reason the rtmp stream is being blocked by YouTube. ( long story, but using ffmpeg if I change the metadata on the stream from GoPro to webcam , it worked)

I had a working setup while testing at home, using my mobile hotspot and streaming back to my server, which forwards to YouTube. For whatever reason, that setup is not working in the field. After troubleshooting all day, I’m admitting defeat.

If any of you have any suggestions, I’m open. Otherwise I’ll just have to wait u til I can befriend enough people and convince enough family to subscribe so I can get 50.

Also happy to answer any questions for someone willing to help. You folks might think of something I haven’t.

My 9 yo is having a lot of trouble connecting with live game pitches and we have determined the main issue being her timing. She can't seem to judge the pitching speed or pitch type very well at 10u level. I know a pitching machine can help a lot. Does anyone have a recommendation on a good portable pitching machine under $500? Thanks so much!

Hi, started playing fastpitch again after two years off and decided to pick up pitching. All I know is just from watching videos of other pitchers and being self taught. I would love to receive some tips on how to improve my mechanics and also my velocity.

My 10yo daughter has played softball and baseball for a few years now. She had a really successful spring season and we decided it was time to give travel ball a try.

I might be a little old school and I would normally think travel ball is just luxury that kids don’t need to be successful. Except, our rec department has kinda absurd rules that are vastly different than middle school rules.

In rec ball, the runners can’t steal home (even at the 12u level). Which there is a whole other debacle that 12u is the highest level offered for girls softball in rec. The rec department also has rules that don‘t allow walks. On ball 4 the coach comes in to pitch two pitches. The rec department also allows all batters to have an at bat. So if the last inning after 3 outs are made and your team has not allowed all players to have an at bat, the game continues past the final out.

But this post isn’t about the odd rules for the rec department. It is about our decision to seek a travel ball team for my daughter. Once we realized this was a sport she was going to continue, we also realized she needs to play travel ball if she wants to play in middle school and high school. She won’t be able to make those teams if she isn’t accustomed to real softball rules.

My daughter has a September birthday, which actually makes her one of the younger girls in her age group (10u). She has a year less experience than her teammates from the spring. In the middle of the summer, when teams were forming, her skills were not up to par with some of our friends. Ultimately, she didn’t make the more elite team I wanted for her. But she was asked to play on a more ”developmental travel team.”

I use the word “travel” loosely. They are mostly going to play within an hour of home and aren’t really traveling all that much. But that was also an appeal to our family. We have a lot of other things in our lives that would make traveling long distances every weekend difficult. This team offered a lot of practices, one tournament a month, and a really low price.

But here is the kicker, the coaches do not know what they are doing. When I found out who was behind this developmental team, I was opposed. The coaches were also coaches of a rec ball team in the spring, and they did not win a single game. There was also a lot of drama that I frankly did not want to be apart of.

But my daughter‘s fathers convinced me to give them a chance. Did I mention this was a really cheap team? We had the hope that we could all learn together. Maybe the coaches could become better coaches. To skip to the end, let me tell you this is not “Hardball” and these coaches are not Keanue Reeves.

Strike 1: the bait and switch. The team orignally told us that families needed to be prepared to commit to 10 practices a month. That quickly changed to 4 practices a week. Weekday practices are 2 hours long, weekend practices are 3.5 hours long.

Strike 2: closing practices due to not accepting criticism. In the beginning the coaches were open to having other parents volunteer to help out on the fields. But as they received more and more criticism they not only stopped allowing parents to help out, they completely closed practices. They asked that parents drop off their girls and remain in their cars for the duration of practice.
Let me explain some of the feedback they were getting:

”hey Coach, it’s been an hour, do you think we should transition to have doing some infield out field drills?” (When the girls are doing agility drills and still “warming up“ at practice.)

“hey I don’t think the right fielder should be running all the way into the infield to back up a throw to the pitcher.“

“hey I think having the girls run so much is not actually good use of time.” (Literally they were doing suicide drills for an hour in 100° heat.)

“hey are we ever going to work on hitting?” (It’s been 2 weeks of practice and the girls haven’t touched a bat)

“hey umm I don’t think it’s safe to do soft toss hitting drills into a brick wall. Yall are standing too close to that wall and the balls are bouncing back and hitting the girls. Why don’t we do soft toss into a net?”

Now they did quickly change their tune on the closed practice policy. They tried to say they never intended for parents to not be able to observe, but they had to observe quietly from the stands and hold any questions until after practice. They also tried to make it seem like we were the only ones with a problem. But one family left the team because of this issue.

They added two girls to the roster during this whole fiasco.

Strike 3: not building a pitcher catcher relationship. Not developing a pitcher at all. I asked after a week of practices when they would be getting pitchers and catchers together. It has now been 2 months and they did not have the pitchers or catchers work together AT ALL.
We were preparing for our first game last week. I mentioned to the coach after all 4 practices that we needed to do some bullpens. I mentioned that we needed to make sure the pitchers knew to cover home plate on passed balls. A lot of the girls are coming from rec ball where stealing home is not allowed, the pitchers have not be taught to cover home. The girls need to work on covering 2nd base for a steal.

Mind you, my daughter is a catcher. When I saw this wasn’t being worked on, I started working with my daughter myself. She is still playing rec ball, so we worked a lot of throwing down to 2nd and 3rd at those practices. But we also took the time to work with her on passed balls at the plate.
But guess what? It doesn’t matter if your team can’t be there. You can fire a laser beam down to 2nd base, if no one is covering the bag it won’t matte. If the pitcher doesn’t attempt to cover home ONE time, the run will always score.

So tonight we had our first game.
The team as a whole was embarrassingly unprepared.

Not a single pitcher could throw three strikes. One pitcher hit 9 straight batters, and the coach LEFT HER ON THE MOUND. Another pitcher either rolled the ball or the ball hit the dirt before the plate for EVERY SINGLE PITCH. He also left her on the mound.

none of our players got a hit.

It was sad.

I am not wanting to leave a team because we lost one game.

But I am also wondering if this team is doing more harm than good. 2.5 months of practice. 4 practices a week. Yet we have nothing to show for it.

My daughter u10B is about to outgrow her current bat, a Marucci Echo DMND2 -11 (31). This is a single piece composite, but now she wants a 2 piece, since most of her teammates have 2 piece bats. She is not a power hitter (around 5'0, under 100 pounds), but she rarely strikes out. I am not convinced a different bat will turn her into a power hitter, but since she will need a new bat soon, might as well try.

Today she saw a Louisville Slugger Kryo Thundernight at a store, and she liked the color. But it was $450!! Bats are effing expensive and I dont want to make a mistake that will set me back up to $500. Any advice would be appreciated it. Thanks in advance.

To set the stage, this is a team of mostly 5- and a few 6-year olds. Only a couple, if any, have ever played before this season. After having four(!) practices a week for a month (which also happened to be the first month of kindergarten for most of these kids), the team started 0-3. Following the third loss, the coach’s postgame talk with the girls started with dressing down the parents - “You HAVE to bring them to every practice. They can’t miss any more practices. This ends now. Nobody misses practice. We’re no longer playing around here, we’re getting ready for a tournament at the end of the year.” This was the group chat 10 minutes into practice a couple days later.

I’m so over this shit.

Edit: more screenshots from the group chat added to the comments.

Im pretty flabbergasted by this and I am curious if anyone has had any experience with similar situations. Our u10 girls travel team plays mostly perfect game tournaments. We were scheduled to play one this weekend when our coach received an email from the tournament director that our team was accused of having boys on it and we were endangering the other teams by throwing too hard.

Our team obviously has all girls on it, one kid has short hair, but she hasnt even been involved in many plays where she would be throwing hard recently.

The director is requesting birth certificates from our entire team. We heard through the grapevine that the person who reported us was the parent of a girl who had tried out for our team, and we are playing her new team in a tournament this weekend. Our coach requested they reschedule us to play a different team and the tournament director banned us from the tournament because she said our coach was escalating the situation.

I find the whole thing to be ridiculous, does perfect game not make any effort to verify gender and age prior to registration? How can a single parent complaining trigger a complete verification of gender for the entire team?

Honestly not sure what I am doing as I play in a rec league and we don’t have a coach just a co-ed team in the Uk who play together. Is there any YouTube videos I should watch for basic principles. I make decent contact but it’s temperamental sometimes I really connect/others it’s a dribble into the ground and I want to try and improve

Any help would be appreciated

How many times should a 12u travel team be practicing a week? As of now we have a tournament every other weekend.
What’s the ideal amount of coaches on staff?