By: Ron Bing, Puritas League, Cleveland, Ohio
In a relatively short period of time you can test your infielders in several areas at once. You will be What we do is hit five ground balls to a boy. The first two are his warm up, the last three are part of Besides the fielding/throwing aspects involved, the boys have the pressure of knowing that everyone Totaling the boys individual scores for fielding and throwing is easy (just get an average of the three Run this drill early in the season, then once or twice more later on to see how much the boys have
Date: March 28, 1998 at 16:17
able to see how each boy compares to the others on the team, and if there are particular areas in
which you need to concentrate on as a team, and individually. I have all the players do this, and I
have all the boys watch each other. I do not coach during this test, I want to see what the players
already know or need to learn.
the test. He fields the ball, throws to first. That's all there is to it. The necessary feedback comes
from four things: we grade the boy on a scale of 1-5 for his technique while fielding the ground ball;
we time him from the second the ball touches his mit on the ground, till his throw touches the mit of
the first baseman; we grade his throwing technique on the same 1-5 scale; and finally, we grade his
throwing accuracy on that 1-5 scale. We hit them only routine ground balls, and we pretty much hit
the ball right at them. Each boy has his own form that we fill out, this way we can go over them
individually later on. After we complete this, and we have time to go over everything, we have a
face off between the top three finishers. Each boy receives a certificate and the winner receives a
small token showing he was the champion!
is watching; their naturally competitive spirit makes a least earning the certificate important; and they
obviously want to impress us coaches. If they have a bad play, they need to step it up and get the
next one right - just like in a real game situation.
balls for each category, then add them up). You need to pull out the calculator for the timing part of
it though.
I get the average time for each boy, then I get the overall average. I then break down the
times so they fit into three equal slots. The point total for times is dependent on which slot a boy falls
into (lower time = higher points). Getting a team average is a good tool for comparing each boy
individually per activity and as a whole.
improved. This same drill can be used for outfield play.