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Prepare Your First Baseman
by Dave
Friday, July 17, 2009
At times, I've been accused of paying too little attention to certain positions including first base. The criticisms are fair. I do not believe I have ever written anything particularly specific about the 1B position. Recently, I have paid close attention to the position because I have watched a girl play the position quite a bit. She doesn't have the skill set needed to be good at her spot. And the coaches have not done anything to rectify her deficiencies. The subpar first baseman is my daughter. And as I watch her play the position, perhaps misplay the position, it has set my mind to work. Numerous questions pop into my head as I sit along the sidelines. Who usually plays first, what are their qualifications, and what do we need to do in order improve the play of the infield's anchor?
In baseball, the 1B is often a big hitter who can't play another position. Lefties frequently get the nod because, in baseball, lefties are relegated to either the outfield or first, unless they can pitch. A slow running, weak armed lefty who can hit is generally called a first baseman in a baseball context. But in girls fastpitch softball where it is not all that uncommon to find a lefty catcher or infielder, we also cannot afford a first baseman who is not athletic, who has bad footwork, or who has a poor arm. In fastpitch softball, a first baseman who is not quick, cannot field very well, or has a weak arm is called a target by the opposition.
So what are the various tasks a 1B must perform well in a softball context? And what can we do to improve those skills?
I suppose the first, most obvious thing a 1B does is take throws from infielders on grounders. She also must cover bunts. She takes pickoff throws from the catcher. She may be the cutoff on certain balls hit to the outfield though very often the pitcher is used to perform this role. She likely takes throws from RF on line drive hits to that field. She has to guard the line on slaps unless you use a modified defense for slappers. She has to field all manner of hit balls just like the 3B does. And she must make throws to all the bases, particularly home after recording put-outs. Am I missing anything?
Taking throws from infielders would seem to be simple enough, yet it is perhaps one of the most complicated jobs on the field. In baseball, where the 1B plays back behind the bag on most situations, the 1B has the benefit of having most plays happen in front of him. That is, on a grounder to short of third, he runs forward with the infielder within his peripheral view. That is quite a contrast to a fastpitch 1B playing at 40-50 feet from the plate who must often turn her back on the play and race for the bag blind to the girl making the throw. She has to run to her spot, find the bag with her throwing hand foot, pick up the ball, and then make the stretch and catch.
I have seen numerous firstbasemen, especially at the lower levels, struggle with this primary, fundamental task. Very often coaches have chosen her for her role for the same reasons one would pick a baseball 1B, height, slow footedness, big hitter-no glove, etc. And they give her little training or advice on how best to accomplish the task. Very often, they feel that normal infield drills in which grounders are repeatedly hit at various infielders who then make the throw to first is enough. It isn't.
If you've ever observed this sort of infield workout, you know this isn't enough as quite often, the 1B knows exactly who is getting a ball hit to them and she hangs around the bag in expectation of that. She isn't standing at her normal position when the ball is struck. She doesn't have to race back to cover the bag. She is practically there before the ball ever touches the dirt. When we run infield practices, we should take the time and attention to make sure players, especially the 1B, are positioned where they would be in a game. We should not permit our 1Bs to drift closer and closer to the bag. We can hit a bunch of grounders at fielders in a sequence but then we ought to randomly hit to all fielders to immitate game situation.
Still, making sure the 1B is properly positioned during routine infielding practice is probably not enough. We can easily do more. We can create a drill just for the 1B in which a coach stands at various places around the infield, position the 1B at her normal spot, 20 to 30 feet from the bag, have her race to cover, and then make throws to her at various angles. At first she can be allowed to reach the bag, find her feet and get ready for the catch before the ball is thrown but as she masters the most basic footwork, we want to put the ball in the air before she reaches her coverage position. We want her to gain experience in quickly finding the bag with her throwing hand foot, look up and locate the incoming throw, stretch and catch.
In addition to the normal skill set which any ballplayer gets work on, the 1B needs to be able to catch the ball with one hand. We school girls in using two hands all the time. If we are good at coaching, all our players field everything with two hands except in very limited cases to get to balls otherwise outside our reach. If you take a girl from almost any other position and put her out at first, her initial instincts are going to be to catch every ball she can move to with two hands. Obviously, a 1B can't do this. She needs to keep her foot nailed to the base and reach. That is a specific skill required to play the position and it needs to be practiced.
As an added layer, we also want to make sure the 1B has practice catching all manner of slightly offline and truly horrendous throws. When I think of this, I think about the high school hockey goalie I have told you about before. He was not at a skill level some of the other players on his team were. But they wanted to have a state championship team that year and they needed the goalie to step up his game. So, during practices, they took wicked shots at him until he became a better player. That practice strategy worked for the goalie and the team but in baseball and softball, the aspect of the game we are discussing is kind of exactly opposite that of a goalie. Also, I don't want my infielders repeatedly practicing to make bad throws just to work out their 1B. I'd no more want my SS to practice making bad throws than I would want pitchers practicing making pitches down the center of the plate. Someone else has to do this, preferably a coach.
Coaches should make their throws right at the 1B's head and also to her left and right. Catching throws to the center, left and right are decidedly different skills. In each case, the 1B must stride toward the throw, after finding the bag, but on the back hand side, her vision is different than center or on the forehand side and the hand eye coordination is also rather different. A well prepared 1B must have loads of experience doing all three.
Going a bit further, taking throws in the dirt on the short hop or otherwise is also very different when accomplished on each side. It takes almost as much repeated experience as hitting does. We give batters 50 swings each at soft-toss, the batting tee and with live or machine pitched balls. The 1B should be no different. She needs reps.
I have often seen relatively inexperienced 1Bs at all levels make a fundamental mistake on base coverage. They get back to the bag in plenty of time, find the base, and then stretch before they know the trajectory of the ball. This sometimes manifests itself in a second stride which is difficult to perform after a first. It also manifests itself in either a missed throw or one in which their back foot comes off the bag. Another common mistake is too short of stride or one accomplished in a lackadaisical, perfunctory manner. I'm supposed to stretch. Coach tells me so. So, here you go, here's my step, uh stretch. 1Bs need to be schooled to make a quick, athletic stride to the ball when and only when they know the trajectory.
Bunt coverage is a primary role for the 1B. She needs to be able to rush forward, pick up the ball and complete the throw to first quickly. The footwork is kind of complicated because she has her back to the bag. 1Bs should have plenty of opportunity to field bunts in front of them and make the throw to the 2B covering. She needs to charge on the pitch when the batter breaks her hands, get to where the ball is, step slightly beyond it while turning sideways to the first baseline, and then pick and throw in a single fluid motion. We just do not have time to bend down, get the ball, stand up, stride and throw. Essentially, the 1B must be in a good body position to make a throw, as she is picking up the ball. She should also be taught to throw without a stride towards the target. This task can be more complicated than it looks. It should be broken down into steps and practiced as much as a catcher practices her throws to the various bases.
In general, I like to use a rule or guide for balls on the ground. If it is stopped and not spinning, which is somewhat rare. A fielder can pick it up with her bare, throwing hand. If there is any movement at all, she needs to field it with two hands. But in this case, where we aren't talking about a grounder, the glove hand should be closed - the glove should be closed. She grips the glove like she has a ball in it, puts the glove to the first base side of the ball, scoops throwing and glove hands together, and picks up the ball with the throwing hand, pulls slightly back and throws while taking no forward step. Again, this needs to be one fluid motion.
The 1b often takes pickoff throws from the catcher unless the defense is running a play where the 2B sneaks in behind her at first. She also, obviously, must take throws on some dropped third strikes. This should be pretty easy. She races back to the bag, places her left foot on or next to it, and makes a target for the catcher that is inside the foul line, out of way of the running lane.
Taking pickoff throws are more difficult. On these, the right handed 1B need to turn her back on the pitcher and be sideways to the catcher. She should take the throw on the bag side but in fair ground, assumming an accurate throw. She has her back to the runner but should be able to barely perceive her out of her left eye. As she catches the ball, she should allow it to pull her towards the bag, while stepping slightly back with the left foot and reaching to make the tag low to the ground. The reason she cannot turn towards the field/pitcher is because it takes too much time to apply a tag. The obvious objection to this is, what if the runner instead of returning to base, breaks for second. Well, first of all, I would hope my other infielders are watching and instructing her in that case. And secondly, she should have enough time to make a throw to second unless the runner is very, very quick. And if she has a big enough lead to make second, probably the throw should not have been made.
If the first baseman is a lefty, she probably has an advantage over her right handed counterpart since she should be open to the infield when receiving pickoff throws. The idea is to have the glove handed side towards the bag, whether lefty or righty, in order to allow the flight of the ball to do most of the work on a pickoff attempt. If the 1B has to reach with the glove, she is going to be slow and probably not get the runner very often.
Aside from taking throws and fielding bunts, obviously a 1B is also one of the four infielders. She, like the 3B, must have experience and practice reps at fielding balls smashed to her left and right. The difference between the 1B and 3B is, obviously, the line is on the opposite side of the fielder and there is a middle infielder with whom she must cooperate also on the opposite side.
In terms of balls hit to the right, we tell 3Bs that they should try to handle any ball they can get to. The same is true for 1Bs. If she can get to balls to her right, she should attempt to field every one of them. She should not find herself worried that nobody is going to be at the bag if she moves to her right. The 2B is in probably the best position to know if she needs to cover first. She should be able to judge whether the 1B can get to the grounder or not. The two girls should talk to each other but the 2B should expect the 1B to cover any grounder she should reach. The only way to work this out is to have lots of experience with each other. The relationship between 1B and 2B should be almost as close as that between pitcher and catcher.
Balls hit to the left of the 1B are generally more difficult than those hit to the right. That's as true for lefties as it is for righties primarily because most balls hit right down the line are hit pretty hard and have some air underneath them. But just as the 3B must knock down everything hit down her base line, the 1B must also. If smashes are allowed to get past the corner infielders, these frequently turn into doubles.
It seems almost com9ical to mme that when infielders do short distance grounder drills in practice, coaches almost always conduct these drills on the third base line. It's almost as if subconsciously they have forgotten about the 1B's role on defense. Sure all the 1Bs join up with the 3Bs in these sdrills but coaches' bias is to run these drills over near 3B. The reason we run this drill near any line at all is because the 3B needs to have an innate sense of where the line is in relation to where she positions herself normally. The same is true of 1Bs. So when you do this drill, please consider alternating between first and third rather than always doing it at third.
Lest I forget, the play after a dive and a stop is as important as the dive itself. One of the most beautiful plays in the game involves the diving third baseman who gets up and makes a good throw to first nailing the runner. One of the ugliest involves the first baseman lumbering to her feet and then throwing the ball into right, past the covering 2B. Along the same lines is a play on which the 1B makes a good play on a ball to her right and then tries to underhand flip the ball to the covering 2B and gets too much air underneath it. The balls floats in the air, defying gravity as the slapper runs right through the bag before the ball touches leather. 1Bs need to practice this underhand toss about as much as a 2B or SS needs to practice their close-range throws to second, perhaps more. They should have a brief conversation with some of the pitchers and then practice the pitcher's fastball snap.
There is a play unique to fastpitch softball which frustrates the offense to no end. When I introduce it to young girls, I tell them that this is possibly their best opportunity to make the opposition cry. The play is a smash to RF which results in an out at 1B. Recently, one team I watched cried and for good reason. They were down by a run in the bottom of the 7th with runner on third and two outs in an elimination game. A pitch caught too much of the plate and the batter drilled it on a line to right. If it had been more in the gap, even just a few feet more, it would have reached the fence on two hops. But after the first hop, the RF grabbed it, wheeled and threw to first, just barely nailing the batter-baserunner and negating the tying run. Ballgame over. Turn on the faucets!
The play a 1B makes on a shot to RF is not particularly difficult but throws from outfielders can sometimes be difficult to handle, especially when they are to the foul line side of the bag. We don't want the 1B to get blind-sided by the baserunner so reaching across needs to be avoided unless the 1B knows the batter-baserunner is extremely slow and the play happens fast.
This brings me back to generally handling throws at first. I forgot to mention this and I can't see a good place to slot it in so I'll deal with it in this spot. When a 1B is handling throws from infielders or outfielders, we have to be careful about instructing them not to reach across the baseline. In fastpitch softball, we are lucky to most often use the "safety base" which at least keeps the runner a bit away from collision with the 1B. But if the 1B reachea across the line, all bets are off. And these injuries can be among the most severe in the game.
If a 1B reaches across the line and a runner strikes her, the result can be a borken wrist or damage done to the elbow or shoulder. It also can end in a concussion. While I certainly can see games of sufficient importance to cause a 1B to be willing to risk this result, I think most of us will never play a game of that kind of importance. We should not risk the potential end of a softball career just to record an out or two. 1Bs need to be able to judge whether they can make a clean catch or not without reaching across the line. If they cannot, they need to be able to come off the bag to catch the ball. Thereafter, a second judgment should be made which is whether they can still get an out by tagging the runner (assumming the ball is on the plate side of the bag).
Proper tagging technique must be taught. The tag should not be like it might be at third where the fielder grips the ball, places her glove between the bag and runner and waits for the two to come into contact. The 1B should grip the ball with two hands and hopefully either get in front of the slow runner if there is time for her to slow down or just wait for her and make a quick stabbing and pullback motion as she goes by. The idea would be for her to perform a movement like she was trying to knock a runner offbalance from the side. This should avoid broken wrists, etc.
In baseball, with its 90 foot basepaths, sometimes the 1B is called upon to make certain throws. There are some slick-fielding, strong-armed 1Bs on the baseball diamond but somewhat often, the 1Bs have weaker arms than other players. This is hidden by the longer distance between bases. But in softball we don't have that luxury. In softball, the 1B must be able to follow a putout with a throw.
In baseball, you often see the 1B stretch like a gymnast, catch the ball, and then slowly come out of the stretch like an old man (like myself) getting out of a chair. In baseball, it is infrequent for even a runner stealing third at the time the ball is struck to attempt to score. if he does, usually he is thrown out by a good margin. In fastpitch softball, if a 1B does that stretch and slow recovery, a runner from second is likely to round the bag and then, if she is fast, reach home before the 1B knows what is going on. If softball, the 1B needs to be acutely aware of baserunners and she must be capable of making good quick throws. This must be practiced.
We have talked about bunt defense and my preference is for the covering 2B to wheel and throw behind the runner, either at second or third. Likewise in situations in which a runner is allowed to advance a base for whatever reason and the out is recorded via a throw to the covering 1B, I would like her to follow up with a throw behind the runner, particularly at second. The reason I say this is because runners advancing safely from first to second have a tendency to either relax after reaching the base or to round it, looking for an opportunity to go to third. In either case, she may not be on the bag. A throw behind her can sometimes record a free out - a free out which can compleyely take the oppposition out of the game.
Well, that's what I have to say about first basemen. I think I'v e covered at least the most important aspects of the position. As always, my motto is practice, practice, practice. I know you are all busy practicing. And as you put together your drills, please don;t forget about the 1B. She needs a unique skill set. She has as many special needs as any other player. You've got to give her specific reps.Labels: defense, practice, pre-season preparation
Permanent Link: Prepare Your First Baseman
 
Humpty Dumpty
by Dave
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
When we teach complex skills like fielding the grounder and making a throw afterwards, we break it into little tiny, easily digestable pieces, especially when working with the very young. I have seen coaches from 8U through high school have their kids perform drills to emphasize the tiny pieces so as to either teach the inexperienced younger kids or attempt to cure mechanical flaws in older girls. These techniques are important and they do work. But, in a speed game, at some point, you've got to bring everything together in a fluid, quick motion.
When I teach throwing to 8 and 9 year olds, I often have them stand with their front shoulders pointing in my directions and their hands together at their waists. They then move up into the "scarecrow" position with the ball exposed to the sky, then step slightly towards the target while bring the throwing hand forward, etc. This is a multi-part action with all sorts of stopping points so a coach can judge whether each piece is done properly. But that process of stage one, two, etc. can have some serious detrimental results if we don't at some point unteach the stopping and lack of fluidity.
There is a high school coach nearby who at some point got sick of watching otherwise decent fielders blow grounders because they didn't watch the ball into their gloves. His resolution for this was to run a drill in which one girl rolled a grounder to another and the girl fielding the grounder would watch the ball into her glove to the point that her pony tail would flip over to the front side of her head. the ball was pulled to the waist and then the girl would pop into the throwing position. It should come as no surprise to anyone that if a girl were to do this and then follow it up with my throwing technique with all its pause points, that if a slapper were to hit a ball into play, she would make second base before the throw arrived at first trying to get her out!
I do think girls need to watch balls into their gloves, pay attention to their body posture while fielding grounders, and make good four seam throws to bases with their bodies properly aligned. But I'm just not willing to have girls continue in their softball careers while not getting anyone out! So, at some point, we must emphasize speed and quickness over technique.
I often tell the story of attending a clinic run by Howard Kobata in which two girls were participating in a catch and throw drill. One girl had a weaker arm. The other had an absolute canon. I would guess that the difference between the two girls' throwing speed was ten miles per hour or more. Kobata fired two balls simultaneously to the two girls standing pretty much side by side. Both balls were caught simultaneously. Both girls threw the ball accurately to their target. The girl with the weaker arm threw a weak throw. The girl with the strong arm fired a laser which was barely perceptible to the human eye. But you know what? The weak throw arrived a measurable time before the laser.
These girls ran through this drill several times. The laser thrower never beat the weak armed girl. Sometimes, the weak throw arrived quite a bit faster. It is difficult to judge time in such a setting but I would hazard a guess that on a few reps, the slower throw arrived at its target a full two tenths of a second, perhaps more, sooner than the hard chuck. Are you understanding? The canon-armed girl was going to get fewer kids out at first than the weak armed girl.
To drive home the fact even a little further, I attended one of those professional softball clinics at which Natasha Watley and Andrea Duran were playing the field. I had obviously seen both on TV but you don't really get much of a sense of the abilities of these two ladies on the tube. You really have to see them in person to appreciate their skills. One of the things which struck me was the speed of their throws. Both are very quick with their footwork and get rid of the ball extremely quickly. But in the throws I saw them make, neither had a particularly strong arm. I've certainly seen harder throws made at the college, Gold and high school levels. I may have seen harder throws at 16U and, in rare cases, perhaps even 14U. But in terms of infielder pop times - the time from the ball touching one glove to another, nothing I have ever seen came even close. When these girls field a grounder, you can blink and before your eyes are completely open, the ball is pounding the first baseman's glove.
The point is, what matters in softball is not so much the strength of one's arm but rather the total elapsed time from glove to glove. Having a good arm and sound mechanics matters. But nothing matters when the ball arrives too late and the kid who can get it to its target faster is better regardless of strength of arm. So that begs the question, how do we learn to be quicker?
The first stage of fixing anything, I suppose is awareness. We have instilled all these pause points in girls which cause these tiny hesitations and it is our job to fix them. When you're doing a skill like fielding a grounder and making a throw, you probably are not really aware of your minor hesitations. You do the skill as you were taughter and as you age up and become more athletic, the pause points become less perciptible. But they are still there. You don't necessarily feel your slowness. I think you have to see them first before you believe they are there.
If you can take a video which shows a girl herself while fielding an ordinary grounders and making a throw, that should help. &n bsp; In lieu of having video equipment handy, running a group drill which shows several girls being slower than they ought to be can also help. But sometimes that can be uncomfortable for all the girls in the drill.
You have to be careful to prepare the girls for what they are about to witness and make sure each and everyone gets about equal measure of criticism. Howard Kobata doesn't precisely practice this technique and I'm not about to criticize his methods. Just suffice it to say that people pay for Kobata's criticism and he gets to go home afterwards. You, as a coach or parent, have a more complicated environment in which you must continue to work with these players in other settings. So perhaps harsh criticism is not the technique you'll use. Still, your objective must be to demonstrate that they are not as fast as they could be.
Once a kid understands that she is slower than she can be, she is in the right mindset to fix some of the problems. Now it is time to conduct some drills to target speed. The first one I like to do involves three girls with five balls. So I call it the five ball drill. You could use three balls or you could use ten. But my experience is five quick reps is the right amount.
One girl feeds balls to the fielder. Another is positioned about 40-60 feet away. The feeder tosses balls to the fielder at about her waist who catches the ball and makes a throw in one fluid motion. The filder should take no steps before releasing the ball. She gets into a good ready position with her glove and throwing hand in front of her. The feeder tosses a ball, she catches and fires towards the target - but accuracy of the throw is not the objective early on. As soon as she makes the throw, the fielder gets back into ready position. As soon as the feeder sees the ball hit the receiver's glove, she tosses another. This should be a fairly hectic pace. And it continues for the five balls. After that, the three girls rotate positions and repeat the drill.
With only three girl needs to run the drill, you can split the team up into say four groups of three. if you have odd persons out, that's OK too. But the person who is not in the drill should pay close attention to what the filder is doing so she can become even more aware of pause points of others and hopefully herself. You can also modify this drill into a race among your various groups of players while awarding points to the winners and perhaps a reward or something along those lines.
I would add some variation on the basic drill of taking a ball at one's waist in order to make the drill more realistic. Have the second round of it involve a throw to the left or right and then switch to the other side. Balls could be rolled or bounced like grounders. They could be thrown over the head of the fielder to mimick a pop-up. You get the idea. This drill is a good start but their are plenty of others.
Another drill I do, this time for ordinary catching and throwing is to place two girls apart, facing each other, behind a line made by cones, about 60 feet apart. I put two sets of these girls alongside each other and make the rest of the team spread out along the outer edges so as to get a good view while not at risk of being struck by errant throws. The two girls in each team throw the ball back and forth a total of ten times. The winning team stays on the field while the losers join their teammates on the sidelines. A new team is brought out to compete. This drill can be a lot of fun and breaks up the monotony of ordinary practices.
One element you want to make sure you address whuile running this drill is sometimes a couple girls, maybe the best girls, will team up and stay out on the field a long time. Also, other girls will choose to stay with one particular person when their turn comes up. You really want to mix and match the girls so they get used to throwing with their entire team. So don;t leave one team out there for more than five iterations and make sure you pick the teams so you can mix it up more than would happen naturally. Also make sure you emphasize accuracy and quickness technique in this drill.
Two of the common plays which require quickness, aside from fielding a hit ball, are those in which 1) an infielder might be taking a cutoff throw, turning and firing to a base which is in back of her; 2) any fielder grabs a ball while facing in one direction and then must turn in a new direction to make the throw. For instance, a fielder might take a throw at first and then need to fire to second. Perhaps someone might get a throw in from the outfield for a tag play at third and then need to make another throw to another base afterwards.
In the case of repeated cutoff throws, what I like to do is line up the team in two or more lines extending from one baseline out to near the outfield fence, spaced about 50-60 feet apart. That means lines of about four people. The balls start at one end and are thrown to each succeeding player down the line and then back to the starting point. In this drill, coaches need to show proper technique for taking and making cutoff throws. The target for each throw should be at the head of to just past the glove side of the target fielder. The receiving fielder tries to make the catch in front of her face on her glove side while simultaneously turning and throwing to the next fielder. I don't suppose you need me to explain how to take a cutoff and make the follow-up throw. My point rather is to emphasize that this needs to be done as quickly as possible and proper technique, along with quickness, is the key to winning the race.
In terms of speeding up ordinary infield catching and throwing, there are several drills I like to run. The first involves placing a fielder at each of the bases. Balls are thrown in one of two direction around the bases. The easiest is to throw from home to third, then second, then first and back to home. This involves standing in a ready position next to the bag facing the direction from which the throw will be received with hands extended in front of each fielder. the throw is received and with no footwork at all, the fielder makes the throw to the next base. if a throw is offline, the fielder must move to the ball and catch it in front of her, then follow up with a throw involving no step. The ball goes around like that as many times as you like or for a set number of times and repeated reps. Then you switch in four new girls who do the same.
Next you change the direction of the ball on your next set of reps to go from home to first, second, third and back to home. This involves catching the ball and then making a pop (very slight leap) to the throwing direction. This is an important technique but I don't want to spend time on it since most know it anyways. The point is to make the pop and throw quickly and accurately, not necessarily as strongly as possible. After each of these, I add a couple of reps in which say the ball goes around one way once or twice and then back the other way.
After each type of these (one way, the other, both), I like to break out the stopwatch and time each rep. I might tell one "team" to go around twice or three times and clock it. Then the next "team" goes and we compare times. A couple iterations of this and I think the girls get competitive about their team's times. That usually shows up in improved times the second and third clocking.
In addition to this and the other drills, I also like to do something during ordinary infield practice. Most teams do something long these lines but I have suffered through enough practices in which no complex throwing takes place that I'll explain what I do. You set your infield out there with players at each position and run through your ordinary grounders, pop-ups, etc. and have the girls make their throws. I believe in fielders fielding as many balls as possible to improve technique. But after everyone has done their necessary reps, you begin calling out follow-up throws after the initial one.
Grounder to third, throw to first, back to home, then down to third (or second). You can instruct the girls to field a ball, throw to first, then to home and then back to where the fielder is covering before you hit a ball into play. As an alternative, if you have your wits about you, you can call the next base to throw to as the first or second throw is in the air. Say there is an ordinary grounder to third and she's going to first, you might start yelling "home, home, home" as the original throw is coming out of the third baseman's hand. Then as the fielder covering first releases the ball to home, you call out "two, two two." You can continue with this indefinitely or perhaps have them make three or four throws after each ball is hit into play. A variation on this is to have each grounder followed by around the horn in one direction or the other. variation is the key. You want the girls to make as many varied throws as possible.
Another good catch and throw drill involv es four players, each starting at one of the bases. The ball is thrown in one of the two directions around the bases. The girl at home runs to first after throwing the ball to first. The girl at first runs to cover home after throwing the ball to second. The girl at second runs to cover third after throwing the ball there. The girl at third runs to cover second after throwing the ball to home. That's one iteration. Then each girl continues catching and throwing to the next base while running back and forth from either first to home and back again, or second to third and back again. You can have the ball go the other direction if you like. You can switch the bases from and to each girl runs.
What generally happens in this drill when it is run right is girls have to make catches on the run, turn and throw, then run hard to get back to the base to cover. They get exhausted and compete to get into good position to make the catch and throw quickly.
As a final drill, I admit to stealing this one from Kobata as well as many good teams I have observed practicing. The drill is one I have heard called alternately "four corners" or "the star." It involves placing a fielder at each of the three bases and two at home. The first person at home gets the ball. She throws down to secxond and then runs towards that base. The girl at second throws to first and then runs there. The girl at first throws to third and follows her throw. The girl at third throws the ball back to home where the second girl is waiting and then runs there. The ball continues around the diamond indefinitely and as girls get tired - they do quickly - I replace one with somebody on the sidelines. Eventually the whole team gets involved in the drill with girls stepping out when they are winded and new ones taking their places. i try to not allow the girls to go into the drill in a particular order since, again, I want everyone to take and make throws from and to everyone else.
You can get a lot of complex throwing in with this drill in very little time. We have actually seen entire teams get winded and exhausted inside of ten minutes. If you are motivated to do so, you can use this drill as a sort of last game of the day preparation and have the girls continue as long as 20 minbutes to half an hour. But I've never gone quite that long.
I believe I have mentioned many of these drills before in writings. The difference is today I offer them within the context of a discussionb on speed and quickness. In this game, success and failure on defense are often measured by elapsed time from one glove to another, infield "pop time" if you will. We break Humpty Dumpty into a million little pieces to perfect techniques. But we must put Humpty Dumpty back together again in order to give girls the tool they need to succeed, quickness.Labels: defense, fielding, kobata, throwing
Permanent Link: Humpty Dumpty
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