Good Advice for players

Another thought for you from tournament weekend...we'll cover the hustle part before I get to the "guts" part.

ALWAYS hustle down the line after you hit the ball, NO MATTER WHAT.

However you hit the ball, strong or weak, fair or foul ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS hustle down the line.

It's your second weapon in an at bat. First, you hit the ball, then you RUN like heck!

The defense needs to first defend your hit THEN beat out your hustle. Your first strike is the hit you put on the ball, you "attack" again by running your FASTEST to put as much pressure as you possibly can on the defense AND to make them PAY if they make a mistake.

I saw too many girls, including my own daughter, slow down before first base. Granted some of them were already out by the time they were within a few steps of the base, but I believe all players should run all hits out at their best speed no matter what. If they're able to slow down and stop before the base on a ground out to the left side, they probably weren't running their hardest. Some are slowing down before the bag and are only out by a step or two, that's just not the way to play. Imagine if these players had been hustling down the line, they could have rushed a throw, they could have shaken up the 1b to possibly mishandle the ball because they were right there - you never know, RUN LIKE HECK after you hit the ball.

Then there was another situation when a girl popped up soooooo high, she should have been standing on 2nd when the ball popped out of the SS glove. Instead, she's dogging it and almost gets caught in a pickle between 1st and 2nd because she wasn't going hard. She was just trotted around 1st and then, bam, the ball pops out of the SS glove and now she's in no man's land between bases not even at top speed. Seriously, she would have made 2nd easy if she had run as hard as possible from the get go. She hurt her team by giving less than her best. I didn't stay at that field to see what happened after that, but it's quite possible that her team had to give up an out to move her to 2nd, a base she could have had "free" if only she gave her best effort after her mis-hit rather than pouted and felt sorry for herself. Team players, and players giving their best effort, never give up on a hit. If you're giving up on hits, if you have players that are, it's time do to a self check and step up your game because you're selling yourself short.