You don’t always need to practice fielding with a live ball. In this video blog post, we are discussing baseball fieding and how you can work on the 3 receiving positions for shortstops and work on receiving technique in your practice without the use of a ball.
– Players begin at their position on the field.
– On the coaches signal, the player will sprint to the bag. Get to the bag BEFORE the ball. You don’t time your arrival with the arrival of the ball.
– Chop step AFTER getting to the bag.
– Once you reach the bag, show a target for where you want the ball to be thrown.
– Once you receive the ball, get across the bag.
Receiving Position #1: Outside of the bag (involves a throw from the second baseman)
- Call for the ball to be thrown to the outside of the bag
- Tag the outside of the bag with the right foot
Receiving Position #2: Inside of the bag (involves a throw from the first baseman that will take the shortstop to the inside part of the field)
- Call for the ball to be thrown to the inside of the bag.
- Once the ball is received, tag the base and then follow by making the throw on to first base
Receiving Position #3: Take It Yourself (involves a high chopping ground ball through the middle of the infield)
- The difficulty with this technique is that if it is not a hard hit ball, the baserunner on first is going to be right on top of you, so you are going to use the bag as protection from the baserunner.
- Field the ball, tag the back of the bag, plant with the left foot and then make a good, strong throw from behind the bag. This will give you some cushion from where the runner is at and being behind the bag.
- Don’t go across the bag, or you are most certainly going to come into contact with the baserunner.
- Always keep the feet moving when fielding the ground ball.
Video Demonstration
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