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Stealing bases at the right time can put your team in a position to win a game.  Learning to do it effectively will separate your team from the rest.  This is one of the little league baseball practice drills that teaches this skill.

What you need (set up):  Pitcher, catcher, second baseman, runner.

How this drill works:  The idea behind this baseball drill is for runners to identify the best time to run against a pitcher.  When they are in their wind up, some pitchers can still make a move to first or second and catch you trying to steal too early.

In this drill, the pitcher will go into their windup, and throw the ball to home plate. The runner will have taken off and run towards second at some point during the wind up.  The coach will help the players identify that ‘move’ towards home plate that signifies the delivery of a pitch, and the time to run to second.

If the runner gets a good jump they should make it to second every time.  Safe runners score one point, runners tagged out – score one for the defense.

Result: Your team’s stealing percentage should rise by doing this drill as your little league players will learn the best time to get a jump on the pitcher.

This is one of many kids baseball drills to teach proper hitting techniques in different situations.  Knowing how to hit each of these balls is going to give the younger players an idea of why they are supposed to swing the bat the way they are instructed.
What you need (set up): You need a tee with a ball, batter (with helmet), and you can have a few fielders to shag balls.

How this drill works:  You can demonstrate to the younger players what happens when you hit certain areas of the ball.  Also you can show the players what happens when you swing a certain way (up, down, level).

Give each player the opportunity to hit off the tee and see what happens when they hit certain parts of the ball.  Further, allow them to experiment with different types of swings.

Results:  Once the younger baseball players understand what happens when they strike the ball in certain areas, it will be easier to impart on them that you want them to strike the ball in a downward fashion in order to create more grounders.

Many of them will want to swing for the fences, because home runs are the cool thing to do, but ensure them that once they can make contact on the ball wherever they want, then hitting for the fences is just around the corner.

…and I am not talking about professional sporting events.
You paid to get in there, you want to waste your time away from the game, so be it.

I am talking about kids games. Pop warner football, Little League games, pee-wee basketball, etc. Last night, I went to my oldest son’s baseball game. At twelve years old, this is something that he enjoys, and he realizes that I enjoy it just as much, if not more than he does. I would say 98% for parents whose kids play sports and/or other activities will know this. Well this is not about you people. this is about the other 2% of you people that really chaps my rearend. The ones that come and make it obvious to everyone else there, that they really do not have much of an interest at what their child is doing.

case in point. Last night, me and several of the parents and grandparents noticed a lady that showed up, and and her damned cell phoen GLUED to her ear from the start of the game until the end of the 3rd inning…which lasted 90 minutes. 90 MINUTES!!!!! Her son, by that time had made a wonderful play at third base, a walk, a hit, and two runs scored (I am privy to this info, for I had the honor, yes the HONOR, to keep score of the game.

did she see any of this? No. She was too busy walking around over by the refreshment stand yapping her gums the whole time. the child came over after his 2 score of the game, and asked “did you see me slide into home plate?” Of course she stopped for two seconds to answer, “Yes, honey, that was great!!” She lied. She flat out lied.

We all know it wasn’t work related, she is a housewife. Now let’s be clear about something. HOUSEWIVES WORK ALSO, they just do not get a monetary paycheck for it. But you have no incoming sales calls work emergencies making your phone ring. We also no it was not a personal emergency…she was laughing through the whole conversation, like she was speaking with a friend.

At what point is the kid going to realize, “Hey, my mom shows up for the game, but she’s not really there?” I hope it never comes to this, but the this kid is a typical 12 year old kid with a brain on his shoulders and has already started mastering deductive reasoning.

Now I am not saying you need to whoop it up for every single play that happens. I’m not saying that you need to know every single kid’s name on the team, what their batting average is, or even their jersey number by heart. What I am saying is keep your damn cell phone put away in your pocket, come to the game, and enjoy a couple of hours of your child having a good time.

Oh yeah. By the way…she is the wife of the head coach of this team.

Little League Pitching
I live in Saint Louis, Missouri. My local radio station is AM 590 KFNS. I was listening to a call in talk show this past weekend, and the subject of inside pitching came up. The comment was made about kids not being taught to throw the inside pitch when they are young. I would like to comment on this myself. Now keep in mind that I have an 11 year old son that plays ball, catcher and has made a couple of pitching appearences, where I am also the coach of the team.

I have, from the start, taught him and the pitchers to try and pitch inside to batters as much as possible. I do not think there is anything wrong with this approach. I think that if a kid is going to pitch throughout his childhood, he (or she…yes, I have no problem having girls on my kid’s team. If they want to play, then they have a spot on my team, just like a boy does (that is a another blog subject down the road)).

I believe that if a child is going to want to have fun in ANY sport, then they need to be taught not only the fundamentels, but also how to succeed in each age group. With each lesson, it needs to be implemented everytime, everygame.

Now if a batter getshit, so be it. I myself was hit MANY times by a pitcher growing. And yes , sometimes I even had tears rolling down my face going to first. But I lived. I “rubbed dirt on it”, and kept playing.

It IS alright to teach kid pitchers to pitch inside!!!!