jhon addison 
Coaching a team of six to twelve year olds who have genuinely never played is a specific challenge, and most drill lists you find online are written for kids who already have the basics. This one is not. These are basketball drills for beginners in the truest sense, for the kid who does not yet … Read more
You hear announcers say it constantly. He is six for ten from the field. The team shot a great field goal percentage. But what is a field goal in basketball, exactly, and why does that stat leave out free throws? The good news is that the definition is simple, and once you have it, every … Read more
Twenty years ago, you could tell a power forward from a small forward with your eyes closed. One banged in the post with his back to the basket, the other faced up and slashed from the wing. They did different jobs, had different body types, and guarded different players. Today, ask a coach to point … Read more
You are trying to plan dinner, or figure out whether you can catch the second half of another kid’s game, and you just want a straight answer: how long is a softball game? The honest answer is that it depends, but not in a vague way. A standard game has a clear length, and then … Read more
People say “softball” like it is one thing. It is not. Fastpitch and slowpitch share a name, a yellow ball, and a diamond, and that is roughly where the similarity ends. The pitching is different, the lineups are different sizes, one lets you steal and the other does not, and you cannot even swing the … Read more
A pitcher cruises into the late innings, the crowd starts buzzing, and the broadcast throws up a graphic that says one of three things: shutout, no hitter, or perfect game. Most fans treat those terms as roughly the same achievement. They are not. They sit on a ladder from fairly common to almost impossible, and … Read more
A batter pops the ball up, an infielder camps under it, and before the ball even lands the umpire throws his arm up and calls the batter out. Half the crowd groans in confusion and somebody mutters about the infield fly rule like it is some dark art. It is not. It is one of … Read more
The balk is the most confusing call in baseball, and anyone who tells you otherwise is bluffing. Coaches argue it, parents have no idea what just happened, and even professional umpires disagree on borderline cases. Part of the reason is that the rulebook does not describe one clean action. It describes 13 different ways a … Read more
RBI is one of the first stats any fan learns, and for a century it was treated as the ultimate measure of a hitter who delivers. Drive in runs and you win games, the thinking went, so the player with the most RBI must be the best at producing offense. So what is RBI in … Read more
If you only track one pitching number besides ERA, make it WHIP. It’s the stat that tells you a pitcher is in trouble before the runs start crossing the plate. So what is WHIP in baseball, and why do coaches and scouts trust it more than the numbers on the scoreboard? WHIP stands for walks … Read more
