Take a look at this submission from Evan, one of my subscribers. A great suggestion for [tag]baseball practice drills[/tag] that will pay huge dividends with your team. When I was a kid, my best friend and I played a game we called Simply Grounders. It was a competitive game of fielding ground balls (we used polysoft balls) in a large back yard.
Setup is two bases on each side of the yard. The first baseman throws ground balls to the fielder on the other side of the yard. Fielding and throwing back to 1st base constitutes an out. An error, or single (boundaries are set behind the fielder – say 10 feet each side of the base) constitute an imaginary runner on first. If the imaginary runner makes it to third, a run is recorded for the first baseman. Double plays are allowed if the grounder is close to second base, and the fielder flips it to himself and completes the double play.
If it is fielded too far from 2nd base for a double play, a force out can occur by running and tagging the base. You must call a force at third if runners are on 1st and 2nd. If runner on 2nd with less than 2 outs, fielder can call a play at third and must hit a target near the first baseman (simulating a tag). After each half inning, [tag]baseball[/tag] players switch ends of the yard (and high five each other every time).
You can play as many innings as you wish in this [tag]baseball drill[/tag] – we’ve played nine inning double headers and kept stats to boot. After playing this for a few weeks, fielding grounders becomes second nature. A ‘blowout’ was a game where you scored 3 runs more than your opponent.
This game proved invaluable to myself and my friend as even now, 30 years later as [tag]baseball coach[/tag]es, we are still able to show up younger players in fielding ability. I have taught this game to my players, and you can certainly tell which ones play it often.