When practicing with your kids, try to get them to use two hands! This is possibly the most critical aspect of fielding grounders that you can teach, and is oddly enough, the one most often ignored by coaches. When set to field a grounder, the glove should be placed on the ground, and the other hand should be open, above the glove, with the heels of the hand fairly close together (the analogy used for younger players is that of an alligator's mouth).

When the ball enters the glove, the secondary hand should automatically close over the ball and gather it in; not only does this ensure that the ball won't pop out, but it places the fielder into a favorable position to make a throw. The further, and less obvious benefit, is that balls that skip off of the heel of the glove cannot pop up and hit the fielder in the face if this basic fundamental is employed; the top hand will simply deflect the ball back down into the dirt where it can then be recovered. As some players get older, they often try to skip this step, they one hand everything they can, thus they miss more balls, get hit more by bad hops and start to loose interest in the game. Reinforce the importance of using both hands, when kids do something well, they tend to enjoy it more! If you are interested in additional baseball training, click here to see a list of local coaches, clinics and camps.

Thank you for reading our first ever newsletter. You can always opt out at the bottom but we hope you stay! If you know any player or family who would enjoy receiving our newsletter please forward them this newsletter by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

 

Sincerely,

Craig Jones