Inside Pitch: What We’re Hearing… from Extra Inning Softball’s Brentt Eads

There’s been a lot of news in softball going on the last few days and we thought we’d share what we’re hearing from various sources.

Much of this was shared with confidentiality so we’re being discreet here but vouch that all/most of this is true!

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* Gatorade National Player of the Year

We’ve been asked if we knew if and when the Gatorade National Player of the Year comes out after the State POY’s were announced on May 29.

Here’s what we do know… Gatorade will be doing the announcement soon; it was pushed back because of all the civil unrest that occurred nationally with the uncertainty caused by the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests.

But there will be a National Player of the Year in softball to be announced in the very near-future and we’ll be on top of it!

This year’s player will be the latest in a great line that includes Kelley Lynch (2019, now at Washington), Megan Faraimo (2018, now at UCLA), Taylor Dockins (now at Cal St. Fullerton), Madi “Bubba” Nickles (2016, now at UCLA) and Rachel Garcia (2015, now at UCLA/Team USA).

* Coaches & Live Streaming

Last weekend was the first major weekend of the summer where there was softball going on in most, if not all, the regions in the country— from Nor Cal to Arizona to Texas to Florida and more.

And with the recruiting dead period and DI coaches not able to be in person, last weekend was the first opportunity to see how it would go with coaches watching/evaluating/recruiting over the internet… so how did it go?

The results were mixed, at best.

There were some tournaments that did live streaming, be it internally or through third-party companies, but the major problem was the coaches couldn’t see the action for a couple reasons:

1. the signals were bad… there were places where the WiFi wasn’t good and the feed either froze frequently or just stopped.

One Power 5 head coach joked: “The first player I can see, I’ll offer!”

2. the views were bad… most views are behind the backstop and it’s hard to tell what’s going on with the action. And who’s doing it. One way to remedy this is with commentary, but most haven’t—or can’t—do this.

*** Scroll down to read more on our thoughts…

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