Why Young Softball Players Should Throw a Baseball

I’ve been involved in fastpitch softball, either in a playing or coaching capacity, since I was eight years old. Thus, over the course of my life, I have seen and interacted with a pretty large number of softball players at all levels. It won’t come as any surprise when I say I’ve seen some pretty terrible throwing mechanics; you’ve probably all experienced the same thing. I have, however, noticed a curiosity: in a number of cases I’ve encountered, the most talented and athletic kid on a team has struggled more with her throwing than most of her teammates, displaying inconsistent accuracy, experiencing arm pain, or both.

There are a few reasons why this might be the case. Personally, I believe coaches across softball, especially at the beginning levels, should place a much greater emphasis on teaching throwing and catching mechanics than they seem to do. Exposing very young players, even exceptionally talented ones, to competitive play without this foundation is doing a disservice to them and their futures as softball players. In addition to this, however, there is a factor that I believe comes into play in many cases. The average young girl’s hand is small, and a softball is big.

What does this have to do with the exceptionally talented players who struggle with their throwing? The more athletic players tend to begin playing softball earlier, and also play up, joining a team with older girls in order to challenge themselves and face better competition (don’t get me wrong; we LOVE to see girls taking on a challenge and pushing their limits. However, it’s important to be aware of any possible pitfalls so you can address them before they become chronic problems). Therefore, they are often required to throw a big softball earlier than some of their peers, when, in many cases, their hands are smaller.

Why Small Hands Hurt Softball Throwing Mechanics

For any adults reading, try this: take something larger than a softball, like a good sized grapefruit, and try to throw it like you would a softball. Unless you have particularly enormous hands, I bet it doesn’t go very far, and maybe even hurts a little. You’ll likely only be able to lower your arm angle and catapult it forward rather than throwing like you normally would. This is how a young girl with small hands feels when she tries to throw a softball.

In order to throw properly, you need to be able to cradle the ball loosely in your fingertips, allowing free relaxed movement of your wrist. In a good throw, the wrist will snap naturally to release the ball. A young girl learning to play softball who has small hands likely won’t be able to hold the ball, even the preliminary 11″ softball, comfortably in her fingertips. Instead, she’ll have to grip harder and place more of her palm on the ball just to keep it from falling out of her hand. This, as you likely experienced if you did my test, inhibits the ability of the wrist to snap, and forces the girl to find an alternate way of releasing the ball. As a result, a number of bad habits can develop, including but not limited to “pushing” the ball from low to high, letting the elbow get way out in front, and cupping the wrist inward. All of these mechanical deficiencies can lead to compromised throwing velocity and accuracy as well as unnecessary stress on the arm and an increased chance of injury.

The young player will eventually grow and develop to the point where her hand can comfortably grip a 12″ softball correctly. However, if she has learned to throw before this stage of development, the bad habits will be ingrained in her muscle memory and continue despite the original cause no longer being present.

How Throwing a Baseball Can Help Young Softball Players

Simply put, a baseball is small enough that if a girl is old enough to play softball, she should be able to grip a baseball properly. Of course she won’t be able to play her games with a baseball, but that doesn’t mean she can’t learn to throw with a baseball and continue to practice her throwing in her own time with a baseball to help avoid acquiring bad throwing habits during critical developmental years. Even if the athlete in question is highly developed for her age and hand size is not suspected to be a problem, throwing a baseball will still be beneficial.

Although one person is not enough of a sample to definitively prove a point, I’m going to share a story anyway: I had a teammate during my high school and tournament ball years who had an absolute rocket for an arm. At some point, she told me that she never played rec softball; when she was young, she played baseball with boys, and when she was old enough she skipped right to upper level travel softball. It’s impossible to know if she’d have developed throwing issues had she learned to throw with a softball, but throwing a baseball all those years certainly didn’t hurt.