Silver Knights

Batters Hitting To the Infield

 Have a coach pitch or use a pitching machine to pitch to players as they rotate in from field position. Have the infield and outfield players try to make a play on first base if possible and perhaps even designate a runner. Make sure you are pitching hit-able balls. They don't have to be fast balls. The advantage of this drill is that you get fielding practice and the coach can closely watch the batter to see that proper form is used.  The disadvantage of this drill is that each player only gets a few at-bats and a lot of players are not doing anything. Still, it is worth doing once in a while as it reproduces the full game experience. Don't have one of your pitchers pitching as you may spend a lot of time chasing wild pitches with little actual batting or fielding.

Live Pitching

While other batting practice is going on, have batters individually bat against a live pitcher throwing against a fence or backstop or to a catcher. Use a pitcher that can throw the most consistent strike pitches. Have each batter hit 3-5 balls. This drill is a must since it is the only one that truly emulates a game batting situation.

Hitting Wiffle Golf Balls

Have your player’s pair off. Then, one player underhand tosses a Wiffle golf ball to the batter and the batter takes their full stride and swing to hit the Wiffle golf ball. Have a coach check in on all the groups to watch for correct form.  The advantage of this drill is that a lot of hitting takes place by all players and batters can focus on watching the ball and using good form.

Batter "Good Eye" Drill Using Colored Dots

Place several red dots on one ball, several blue dots on a second ball, and several green dots on a third.  Have a pitcher randomly grab a ball and then call out a color as he/she is pitching, keeping the true identity secret from the batter.  The batter should hit the ball if it matches the color called out by the pitcher.  The pitcher should call out the true identity about half the time and a false identity half the time.  If the actual dot color does not match the color called out, the batter should not swing.  This drill forces the batter to closely watch the ball all the way in from pitcher to bat.

Batter "Good Eye" Drill Using Multiple Balls Thrown

Have a coach underhand toss two balls and call out "top" or "bottom" as the balls are released (or after being released).  The batter must hit the correct ball.  This drill forces the batter to watch the ball all the way in.

Using a Batting Tee

Batting tees are a nice tool for developing good mechanics, follow-through, and bat speed and are used at all levels of play. You can build a bunch of these tees for your team (or for at home) for under $15 each using these batting tee plans. As the batter bats, a coach should make sure they are using proper mechanics. Vary the height of the ball to insure the batter keeps eyes on the ball.

Catching & Fielding - How To Catch A Baseball

There are some fundamental rules for catching and fielding listed below. Start with these and then practice, practice, practice! To be a really good player, you need more practice than the few hours a week at regular team practices.  You should practice more at home and try to make it a fun tStart with a good glove! This should be an all-leather glove properly sized. See gloves for more info.

Stand with knees slightly bent and feet apart a little wider than shoulder position.  Your hands should both be in front of you with glove pocket facing in as if you were about to shake hands.  You need to be in a slightly crouched position so that you can quickly move up, down, right, or left as needed to field the ball.

When catching a ball over the waist, the glove hand is pointed up with the top of the pocket up.  When catching a ball below the waist, the glove hand is pointed down. Right at the waist may require you to crouch down a bit with the glove pointed up.

Let the glove give a little as the ball hits it.  This will decrease the speed of the ball and lessen the chance of it bouncing out.  This takes a bit of practice.

As the ball settles into the back of the pocket, squeeze the glove shut! This will prevent a lot of dropped balls!

If possible, use the non-glove hand to cover the ball as it enters the glove.  For grounders, this is essential!  Watch any MLB outfielders and you will notice that they use two hands when fielding grounders. The extra hand is always ready to knock the ball down if it takes a sudden wild hop.

To field pop-ups, try to quickly judge whether you need to take steps back or forward. Take needed steps to get under where the ball will end up. For deep outfield hits, this is very difficult for younger players but comes with practice. For very young players, practice with tennis balls or padded T-balls to minimize injury if the player misses the catch.