As most of you involved in youth softball are aware, there were two significant changes to the Junior Olympic (youth) softball program approved by the ASA National Council at their meeting this past November. One was moving the 18 and Under Gold pitching distance from 40 feet, to 43 feet. Since ASA’s action, there has been plenty of discussion among the managers and participants in the program concerning the change and possible impacts.
To begin with, it should be noted that this change did not just drop out of the sky. Proposals to change the pitching distance for this age and division of play have been submitted for Council consideration for at least five years, but until this most recent meeting, they had been rejected. While support increased slightly each year, perhaps the International Softball Federation’s action to move the pitching distance for their Junior Girl’s competition to 43 feet provided the final impetus for ASA adoption.
Many of the questions currently circling the softball community about the change include: Why weren’t the other 18U divisions included in the change? What affect will this change have on the number of Gold or ‘A’ teams? How will the change affect the game? It’s always fun to speculate on such questions, so I’m going to throw my two cents in here, as others have done in recent tournaments, showcases and every softball website known to man. But of course, as always, my opinions are right.
So why weren’t other divisions of 18 and under fastpitch included in the change? Well, that’s easy to answer. If the other divisions had been included in the change, there wouldn’t have been enough support to get it approved for the Gold division. Many of the ASA Commissioners from the traditionally less competitive areas of the country, are dead set against any change in the J.O. program that, in their opinion, will make their teams less competitive.
With the fastpitch game being so pitcher-dominated, these Commissioners had less problem with the distance change at 43 feet for Gold, because their teams have college pitchers that can insure their competitiveness, or they have few if any Gold teams that would be affected. But they drew the line at the ‘A’ level, because that has become "their division of dominance". A review of the final standings for the 18U ‘A’ Nationals, with notable exceptions such as 1999, indicates that California has not dominated the top positions as they have at most every other age and division, and the Golden State’s results at the ‘B’ level are even worse.
I have heard plenty of opinions on what type of impact the new pitching distance will have on Gold participation. I find it interesting that some actually feel that the change will cause an increase in the number of Gold teams. Personally, I think it will have the opposite affect. Pitching is the name of the game, and the one consistent at the Gold level is that dominating pitching is needed to be successful. In view of this, how are lower level Gold teams, with minimal pitching, going to be competitive when three feet has been added to the pitching distance? The answer is that they won’t.
Since all 18U teams play in the same showcase and tournaments prior to national qualifying and after nationals, playing ‘A’ or Gold has only a minimal impact on whether a player gets "seen." The only impact is the lack of exposure at Gold Nationals as opposed to ‘A’ nationals, but if you don’t have pitching, you aren’t going to make it to Gold nationals anyhow. No, what I see is that managers of these minimal Gold teams realizing that the pitching distance change will impact them more than the quality Gold teams, will make the wise decision to play in ‘A’ ball. Perhaps not in 2006, but certainly, in 2007, unless ASA changes direction and adds ‘A’ to the distance change, which they should have done in the first place.
However, there is also a real possibility that more Gold teams will now be bringing back college pitchers, since the distance is now the same for those with J.O. eligibility remaining. So, in my crystal ball, I see very little impact on the actual number of teams at the Gold level, but I do see fewer opportunities for non-college pitchers to receive exposure at Gold qualifiers and at Nationals.
Finally, on the matter of how the change will affect the game, first and foremost, as indicated above, I think we will see more college pitchers coming back to play Gold. I think we will also see an increase in offense, and an opportunity to see more great defensive play as the ball will be put into play more often. Other than perhaps the college player issue, I’m not sure any of these are bad for the game. There has also been some discussion that the extended pitching distance will increase the length of the games, which is more of an impact on tournaments, showcase events where time limits are used, than on championship play. Of course the answer to this is to increase the time limit, which may require permitting fewer teams into these events, but that too is not necessarily a bad thing.
JUMPING BACK INTO THE POOL
Of course the other major change adopted by ASA was re-instating pool play in all age and divisions of youth fastpitch. It was just less than a year ago here, that I condemned ASA for approving the three game format, and followed up blasting them again before nationals when it finally appeared that others in the youth softball world began to realize the negative impact the format would have on their national experience.
While I’m sure ASA felt permitting more locations to host these large events was adequate reason for the change, the truth is with the method utilized for awarding nationals, it is doubtful that any significant increase in "new" hosts would result. The ASA has a history of acting slowly, or not at all sometimes, on issues that need to be addressed. This time it is nice that they quickly realized the errors of their ways, and did the right thing.
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As always, you can contact me at floydeunslip@yahoo.com_and so the ball rolls.