By: Tom Persia, PersiaT@aol.com, Coach, Rockville Boys Baseball
At a clinic I attended at the Universtiy of Nebraska when Tom Osborne was coaching, Coach Osborne made a point to let everyoe know that at Nebraska they did progression teaching and they always started at he beginning. This set of progression drills follows Coach Osborne's recommendation. This is a set of progression drills for teaching how to field a ground ball. They start from the very basics of footwork, body postion, and hands. As we are all aware of practice time, some of the individual drills will be combined. DRILL #1 - Players paired. First Basemen down first base line with gloves. Fielders two steps behind second-third baseline and two steps to the right of the right of the first basemen without their gloves. Fielders place ball on baseline. Fielders assume good infield postion. On signal, or individually if prefered, fielder advance toward ball aligning at ball with both hands around ball, head down looking at ball, and feet in the manner in which you have coached them. (Note some coaches prefer for the glove side foot to be even with the ball and the throwing side foot about 6 inches behind, others desire the feet to be parallel.) On the count of two, player picks up ball, crow hops toward the first baseman and gets into a ready position to throw ball. (Glove side foot should be pointing toward first baseman, weight should be on back foot, both hands at chest.) On three, if desired, throw should be made. (NOTE: Early season it is sometimes not advisable to make throw for obvious reasons.) DRILL #2 - Start as in DRILL #1, but this time, fielder places ball to their rirht or left. Remainder of drill is the same as DRILL #1. These two drills provide opportunity to measure basic fielding fundamentals and emphasize the importance of feet, body and hand position. It also provides the opportunity to check the relationship of the ball to the body when fielded. DRILL #3 - Start as DRILL #1, except fielder keeps ball in hands. On signal fielder rolls ball forward and continues on to
field ball. This is reverse motion, but is effective in teaching the fielder not to overrun ball. If fielder over runs ball, he will have to reach between his legs and will inexitably miss the ball as he tries to reach behind him. It is also imperative that the fielder catch the ball the moment he stops. Having he player stop when the catch the ball will also enable a good lesson in the importance of having good body control when stopping to field a ground ball. The remainder of the drill is done as in DRILL #1. DRILL #4 - Start as DRILL #3, except fielder throws ball to right or left. These drills add movement and work on body control and balance. DRILL #5 - Start as DRILL #1, except have first basemen keep ball. First baseman throws an easy grounder (Remember fielders do no thave gloves.) to fielder. Fielder fields ball and throws back to first baseman. It is imperative in these drill that attention be paid to how the fielder fields the ball with their hands. Some may be tempted to pick the ball up with one hand on each side. In doing this, they with have a hesitation in thier fielding which will be noticable. Fielders should field the ball with the glove hand coming in contact first and sort of swooping the ball up with the glove hand moving under the ball and almost pushing it into the throwing hand. This is how one fields with a glove. A fielder who waits for the ball with the glove on the ground and the hand in a 6 o'clock position will miss more balls than he catches. When fielding a ground ball, the golve is brought from a natural 9 o'clock position, sweeping under the ball to a 6 o'clock position, then raising the ball as the throwing hand comes down. When doing progression teaching, you must replicate the task as closely as possible, changing only that which helps teach the part of the skill desired. These drills give a good take on how well the fielder understands the skill and how well they perfom the skill. They can be done fairly quickly with the progression done smoothly.
I use DRILL #5 as part of my pre-practice/pre-game loosening up drills.
Date: February 08, 1999 at 13:27