Indoor Ground Ball Practice Tips – How to Play Baseball with Jack Perconte
Kids who play baseball in cold weather states are at a definite disadvantage when if comes to playing baseball. Often, this disadvantage does not come into play with throwing, pitching and hitting because of the ability to perform these skills adequately indoors. However, the diasadvantage comes into play in the fielding area – not being able to get outside and catch groundballs and flyballs for the extended months that “warm weather players’ can is a huge disadvantage. The problem is that it is extrememly difficult to duplicate playing field conditions indoors. Indoor turf fields and gym floors often create bad fielding habits because of their true bounce nature. Kids can easily calculate where the ball will bounce on these surfaces and be able to get away with incorrect fielding fundamentals.
Following are things coaches can do to help players learn good fielding habits when working indoors.
1. Start with ground balls that hug the floor – this is the key – because balls will always bounce true indoors players learn to put the glove where they know the ball will bounce and never learn to start the glove down, below the hop to begin.
2. After doing this for awhile, work on slow, low balls where players have to be agressive and charge the ball – emphasizing staying low when approaching the ball.
3. Next, bounce the ball in a “one hop” style where players have to decide whether they should charge the ball and catch it on the high or short hop, or lay back and play it on the second hop.
Of course, fielding fly balls present an even bigger challenge – working a great deal of footwork, especially getting a jump on the first step can be done though.
photo credit: kthypryn
