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The Grass Is Actually Greener In The Outfield
by Dave
Monday, March 06, 2006
 Outfielders get no respect. There is a presumption early on that all the fun is to be had inside the pitchers circle, behind the plate or just anywhere in the infield. That may actually be true in the early years of rec ball but, over time, a good portion of the real action occurs out beyond where the skin ends and the green grasses begin. Let's take a look at some of the most important outfield skills and a few drills meant to strengthen them. I'm going to approach this from the earliest years and then move on to ones meant for older girls.
Beginner
Outfield skills are very different than those learned at other positions but in the early years they consist of all the basic fundamentals like throwing and catching. Before you move on to more involved skills, those who are destined to be put out to pasture need to work on throwing with a proper motion which will put the least amount of stress on the elbow and shoulder while generating the strongest, most accurate throw. But that's a subject for another day, one which should be emphasized by all coaches with all players at all levels, but one we don't have room to deal with here.
One of the most important fundamental skills all outfielders must possess is the ability to catch the ball. I'm talking about 7, 8, 9 even 10 year old girls here. They must be taught how to catch a ball properly. The first aspect to catching is the part of the body you use to catch a ball. That would be your eyes. Girls must be taught from the get go that they must keep their eyes on the ball at all times. This is an important emphasis point for all coaches. It sounds rudimentary to you but that's because you have been catching balls for decades and decades. When working with young girls, you must dig deeper into your experience than what is most obvious to you today.
Secondly, you catch the ball, to the extent possible, using both hands. This is not because two hands are better for catching a ball than one. It is because A) balls can pop out of mitts and having another hand there can prevent dropping the ball and B) you are going to have to remove the ball from the mitt anyway to make a throw back into the infield so you might as well have the throwing hand ready anyways. Another skill you can teach involves using the throwing hand to shade the sun but in any event, both hands should be high in the air when making a catch. Coaches, don't allow your girls to catch with one hand unless they are reaching for a ball they cannot get in front of. That brings us to an another important point. To the extent possible, you want your players to move their bodies so they line up with the ball trajectory. You don't want players to develop the habit of reaching for the ball out of laziness. It takes constant vigilance but this is one of the most important skills you can teach your kids.
Thirdly, you catch a ball below your waist with the pocket of the glove pointing skyward but you catch all other balls with the fingers pointed up. If you do this and ever drop the ball out of the mitt, your throwing hand should be there to complete the catch. Early on this might be the most difficult skill to teach. The way to do it is to use safety balls (the soft spongy kind), show your kids that being hit by the ball is not going to hurt, then throw little bloops slightly above their heads and force them to catch the ball with the fingers up. As an aside, a very good drill for young girls to learn catching in general is to play catch with a soft ball bare handed. This engenders hand-eye coordination and gives girls confidence that they can catch. You don't want to start an 8-9 year old practice with all your girls playing catch with each other. You, the coach throw to the girls and have them throw to you. At some point, if you've done your job correctly, your girls will be confident and capable enough to catch by themselves.
Slightly Advanced BeginnerSo you've taught throwing skills to all your players and now they can catch pretty well. I assume you've also taught infield ground ball fielding skills too and now you are ready to do some outfield specific skills. The first thing I want to say here is that there are not a huge number of fly balls in the outfield in the early years but you do need your girls to learn to field balls on the ground in the outfield so this is a good place to start. If you watch youth rec games and see balls which end up in the outfield, you will likely notice that most of the outfielders simply stand and watch until the ball stops. So a good place to start discussing outfield play is to tell your girls that all outfielders must run towards where the ball is going until they are sure somebody else is going to get it.
Secondly, the way to chase a ball in the outfield is different than it is in the infield. In the infield, you want your girls to keep their hips and shoulders square to homeplate as they cross step to the point of meeting the ball (obviously until you work balls in the holes or do backhand skills). In the outfield, you want to teach girls to turn their hips and shoulders to the direction they are running while keeping their head and eyes faced in the direction of the ball. A good drill for young outfielders is to have them run 40 yard sprints in a direction perpendicular to you while keeping their eyes on you. Do about 5-10 repetitions for each girl once a week or every other week. This should take no more than 10-15 minutes if you have ten girls running this drill.
It is important to emphasize that the girls are not running towards the ball but running to where they expect the ball to be. This is learned through experience so after a few iterations with just running sprints - no ball involved - you can modify the beginner outfielder drill to add chasing the ball. I suggest you set up a cone or some other marker at the 40 yard distance from the starting point then roll the ball towards that while the girls are running their sprints. Later on you can hit the ground balls using a bat to get a more realistic experience and you can do away with the forty yard aspect and a marker. the thing to make sure you do with anyone who is going to be in the outfield is make sure A) they are running after balls, B) they are running to where they expect to meet the moving ball, C) they turn their hips and shoulders to that meeting point, and D) they are keeping their eyes on the ball - turned inwards, not looking where they are running.
A good way to reinforce this is to take two sets of girls into the outfield, one in center, the other in left. One girl from each group at a time takes up position and then you roll or hit balls between them. Both girls race towards where they think the ball will be when they get there. Once you have run this drill a few times, you want to introduce the concept of backing each other up. Obviously you are not always going to hit or throw the ball exactly in between the two players. And just as obviously, one girl or the other is going to be the faster runner. Tell both sets of girls that at the point where they can judge the other girls is going to get to the ball first to modify their running to run about 15 feet in back of the girl who is going to get to the ball first. So the effective outfielder drill is with two spots in the outfield and a ball thrown or hit between them, both players pursue the ball and one judges herself to become the back up fielder. take care that one girl is not always making the play and the other performing the back up. I think you can handle this aspect of things as you see fit. Just don;t allow wallflowers to get stuck to the wall.
As far as actually fielding the outfield ball on the ground goes, I have seen a large number of coaches to teach girls to go down on one knee to field a ball. I disagree. I don't see how actually retrieving the ball on the ground is really any different in the outfield than it is in the infield except that in the outfield, the speed is usually diminished and diminishing. I don't buy into the notion that an outfielder gains anything by going to one knee but I won't argue with those who advocate it. The only thing I see different about outfielding is there is no need of placing the hand up in front of the face as in the "alligator" position since a fielder should not be waiting for the ball to come to her. On a ball to hit to either side of a fielder, she runs to meet the ball, arriving as the ball does. She should use two hands but there is not the need to put one hand in front of the face. The throwing hand goes with the mitt to retrieve the ball.
If a ball is hit right at a girl, she will need to "charge the ball" by which I mean, she should be moving towards it. Teach early outfielders to take short choppy steps - not to run with long strides. Ball which get past early outfielders often do so because of a lack of timing on the part of the running-all-out fielder. This problem can be alleviated by teaching girls to run short choppy strides on balls hit right at them. You can drill this by simply rolling balls out to the outfielders and make them learn through experience that short strides are better. On these sorts of plays, the shoulders and hips must be square to home like they are in infield drills and girls should be taught to take fewer steps toward the ball than they think they should. Have your outfielders, one at a time, stand in leftfield while you stand at the edge of the dirt. The player assumes ready position and then begins taking short choppy steps towards you but stops when you roll the ball right at her, at which point she goes down like an infielder with waist and knees bent, butt above the knee, glove down by the ground and throwing hand with the glove. Now move back to around third base or a little closer to home and roll balls out to the fielder who begins moving as soon as you roll the ball but stops and prepares to field the ball as soon as it clears the dirt and is rolling on grass. As an aside, because the ball and grass interact, it is almost impossible to roll a ball precisely to the fielder but this doesn't change the drill or the skill. Girls approach the ball hit right at them and make little adjustments as they see the ball slightly to their left or right just as infielders do.
Advanced Advanced BeginnerSo we've covered grounders for beginner outfielders and now it's time to move on to fly balls. The skills are not very much different than they are for grounders. But obviously the ball is flying.
The first thing you want to teach your fielders is three words, "MINE, MINE, MINE" on all fly balls. Start out with a game of "catch" where you are 30 feet from the girl in the drill. Toss a short popup to her. She yells "mine, mine, mine" and catches the ball. After each girl has had three turns, throw the ball a little higher and to her side. Again, "mine, mine, mine" followed hopefully by a catch. The next kind of drill is to make the fielder run for the ball the same way they did for the grounder, hips and shoulders in the direction being run while head and eyes following the ball, and, of course, "mine, mine, mine." I just cannot say that enough. And neither can outfielders.
Your next drill will be to place outfielders in two fields, say center and left, and then throw the popup between them. The girls run and when one decides she can get to it, she calls it and the other girls should move to a backup position well behind the girl making the play. It is drastically important to teach your girls to honor the one who first makes the call. This will help avoid injuries due to collisions in games and will teach teamwork since, lets face it, somewhere, sometime, the fielder making the call is going to miss the ball and the girl who backs up effectively is going to save bases, perhaps runs, and feel really good about helping the team. If you see a girl call the ball too early, stop the drill and point out the error. If you see one girl give up on the ball because she is sure the other is going to make the play, stop the drill and make her go again. How many times do you see a can-a-corn popup where one outfielder is clearly going to make the catch and right at the end of the play you see the other fielder run behind the one making the catch. I don't care if you are taking the US National Softball Team or the Major League All-Star Game, outfielders must back each other up on every play. Now is the time to teach them that.
IntermediateWe've gone over some basic outfielding skills dealing with ground balls and flies. We've discussed some drills you can use for young girls to prepare them to play the outfield. Now it is time to step it up a bit and talk about some more advanced drilling. The skills remain the same but more difficult drilling is called for. The first drill is an angular pursuit drill. The coach is standing around second base with a player positioned about 30 feet in front of the coach on the outfield grass. She runs diagonally towards the foul pole and, after she gets about 30 feet, the coach throws a pop or line drive type throw beyond her forcing her to run hard to make the catch. Just as with the little kids, make sure her hips and shoulders are square to the direction being run while the head is turned to the thrower, eyes on the ball. Of course, when the trajectory of the ball is determined, the hips and shoulders will take that running direction and the head and eyes will follow the ball. Repeat this drill at least ten times per girls.
Now you are ready for a change of direction drill. In the same setup as before, the player runs towards the foul pool but the coach allows her to run further - say 60 or 70 feet, then the coach throws the ball behind her, she alters her position by turning back towards the coach and then in the new direction. You can vary this drill by making multiple changes of direction based upon the direction the coach is pointing and then throwing. You can also change the direction you are throwing randomly to cause a more real world experience.
Here's another change of direction drill for you involving two coaches, one at second, the other at third. The player in the drill stands about thirty feet in front but slightly to the left of the coach at second base. She begins running to a point about halfway between third base and the foul pole and the coach at second throws the ball. After she catches the ball and returns it quickly to the coach at second, she now runs out towards centerfield the other way and the coach at third throws in her direction. After a few iterations of this drill, start the next player into her motion as soon as the coach at second receives the ball so two girls are fielding in opposite direction simultaneously. The mayhem caused by running two plays simultaneously is a good lesson for any fielder.
Advanced IntermediateOK, so we've discussed fielding the ball but we've said little about the fundamentals of moving from ball retriever to making the play back into the infield. I think it is fair to say we are all familiar with the term :crow hop" as it relates to a fielder making a throw. This is particularly important with respect to outfielders where a strong throw is often required. Outfielders need to work on the transition from fielding a ball to crow hop to throwing. For balls on the ground this is fairly simple. If you go back to the drill where we hit or threw the ball directly to the outfielder, all you need to do is add making the throw. For righty throwing fielders, the action of picking the ball up (similar to what an infielder does) is immediately followed by a step with the right foot where the instep is pointing to the throwing direction. That's the hop which is then followed by the throw. So a righty outfielder would have slightly more weight on her left foot as she is retrieving the ball which allows her to hop to the right foot.
When discussing throws from the outfield, I think I see more inexperienced outfielders try to make long throws by arcing the ball upwards. There is no question that throwing a ball upwards at a 45 degree angle to the ground will maximize its distance. But please don't teach your outfielders to throw like this. It is far better to teach infielders to go out and pursue a cut off throw than it is to teach outfielders to throw the full distance by throwing at an upwards angle.
Sometimes you need to make a full distance throw as in the circumstance of a runner tagging up at third, but throwing at a 45 degree angle is still wrong in these circumstances. This is a throw for heroes who dream of winning the game by making a perfect throw to home with no hops. The right place to aim a throw is right at the cutoff person's head or slightly above it. The idea is to hit the cutoff person in the head and if this results in an angle of more than 25 degrees, your cutoff is not out far enough. Even on a throw to home with the winning run coming in from third, the place for the throw is the cutoff person's head. As a player who has been involved with many a tag plays at home, I can tell you that it is far better for a ball to hop two or three times in the infield than it is to try and jump to retrieve the ball and then make the tag. Make your outfielders throw low and on line with the bases. Teach your infielders and catcher to get used to throws hopping on the infield and making tags from there. Don;t teach your outfielders that they have to make the throw to the bases without hops.
One of the tricks to learning good fundamentals is a lot of drilling. Live hit balls is great for an outfielder to gain experience. But before you do that, you need a lot of drilling of fundamentals so an outfielder does the right thing in a fundamental sense every time she is hit the ball. You should keep drilling the thrown ball drills throughout the season to enforce good fundamental skills. But that having been said, let's move on to live hit ball drills.
After the fundamentals have been ground into an outfielder's head much of what is gained in practice is the experiential part of outfielding. You need to see a lot of different trajectories and hit speeds in order to become a truly skilled outfielder. Simply hitting ball after ball to outfielders will not get that done. You have to try to spray the ball around, hit line drives and pop flys, etc. And each of your fielders needs to gain experience in each of the three outfield positions. It is best if you can have both a righty and lefty hitting practice fly balls since each offers different spins to balls hit to the various fields. Also while the lack of practice space may force you to hit flys to your outfielders from a point along the foul line, say between third and the foul pole, that's not the real trajectory of hit balls during the game. if you have enough space to take over a whole field from time to time. Hit balls to your outfielders from home plate as this provides a more valuable experience. And because all hitters hit balls differently, if you are running a machine or pitcher pitched batting practice on the field, it is often valuable to have your outfielders out there shagging flys and line drives off live bats. Do your drills for fundamentals but the more live balls a fielder can view, judge, and run down, the better. I say this from the experience of having been an outfielder. You can shag flys all day long every day when they are hit from the foul line but until you are in the game and looking at balls hit from home, you don't get the right look to build real judgment.
ConclusionWe've gone over some important basic fundamentals you need to use when working with very young girls. You need to teach every young player to catch and throw. You need to teach every young outfielder to go after the ball. You need to teach more advanced girls what a proper pursuit vector is and how to chase after something diagonally with hip and shoulders in the running direction while keeping the ball in your line of vision. You must drill these skills over and over and continue doing so even after your girls have moved well beyond advanced beginner status. With more experienced girls, you want to provide more complicated drills. You also want to provide your outfielders with as much experience judging live hit balls as possible after the fundamental drilling for the day is done. But don't just stand along the third base line hitting cans of corn. try to get your girls experience with real live hit balls. It will pay off when your pitcher is having a tough day or the other team is bashing the ball around your defense like a pinball machine.
 
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