Don’t pull a player mid-inning to make a point

It was the first inning of a fall game, and we were far from evenly matched. We were hitting rockets, and the few catchable balls we hit weren’t getting caught.

One of their outfielders fielded a ball and was slow getting rid of it, which gave us an extra base. The coach shouted at him and sent a replacement out — in the middle of the inning. A few plays later, another outfielder didn’t catch one, and he got the same reaction. A bench player trotted out to replace him.

He embarrassed these players to make a point.

This wasn’t a matter of players being lazy or not focusing. They were playing at the level you’d expect from their training and ability (regardless of what the coach may say), and they were punished for it.

Did the players who got pulled learn anything that makes them less likely to make the same mistake? Would the replacements play any better?

I think you know what I think. That’s coaching through fear and intimidation. The coach is a bad communicator. He’s angry, and his players’ performance is embarrassing him. So everyone has to know it was the kid’s fault, and that Coach taught him better.

I’ve coached for more than a dozen years, and I don’t believe I’ve ever replaced a player in the field during an inning for a mistake. But I’ll admit there was more of that style in me at one time than I’d like. Those teams still succeeded, and for a while I thought the intensity was the reason.

Looking back, it was the coaching that got results: Helping them understand the game, helping them love it and teaching them something new. If anything, the theatrics limited what we got out of those players.