Combine This

Yes, I know a baseball combine wouldn’t include a three-cone drill; at least, I don’t think it would.  But based off of Clare’s softball experiences, I’m willing to bet there’d be plenty of dumb stuff to take its place.

 

Of course, high school players don’t attend combines; they go to “camps” and “clinics” instead; that’s spelled c-o-m-b-i-n-e, by the way.  Coaches—and, believe me, that’s a mighty loose term—run these events with an eye to filling their own rosters.  One camp Clare went to between sophomore and junior year the coach threw some soft-toss to my daughter and then rated her in a tie for the fourth-worst hitter he saw that day.  Did I mention Clare holds the single-season and career homerun marks at Elmhurst College, along with total bases, or that she’s second in career at-bats; runs scored; extra-base hits; and RBIs? 

 

And yet this community-college coach missed it just as the D-I coach who had Clare hit off two tees simultaneously did; this person also had players try to catch tennis balls with one hand while backpeddling.  Another time at this school in a session with the team hitting coach, Clare was made to hit off a tee while bending on one knee and holding the barrel, not the handle, of the bat.  And that proved what, exactly, other than athletes have to be ready for when coaches want to play Simon Says?

 

Now, maybe you can see why cones and bench pressing, or whatever the baseball equivalent will be, don’t impress me all that much.  There are some things, the most important things, about a player that only reveal themselves in game situations.  And don’t expect me to backpeddle on that, either.