Try these [tag]baseball practice ideas[/tag] to keep your high spirited 9-11 year old players to stay focused as a group. We split the team up between two different fields & have two [tag]baseball infield practices[/tag].
This gives us the chance to rotate through all 5 of our pitchers so they aren’t throwing so much at practice just enough to stay in shape while saving plenty of arm for games. It also helps our outfielders be ready to play wherever they need to & we have two sets of infielders when its all said & done.
Once a week we have a [tag]baseball[/tag] practice dedicated to batting where we work with them on swing mechanics. At these practices we have 3 or 4 of the boy’s dads come out, myself & the dads & our pitcher’s pitch to the boy’s. It gives them a chance to get a look at all kinds of pitches. Since we started doing this we have boys who couldn’t touch the ball before and are now nailing it into the outfield on all kinds of pitches.
Another thing I did is to draw dime sized spots on tennis balls and have them swing for the spot. We do this at our indoor practices with a 360 degree tee. we use tennis balls for indoor fielding drills. They bounce a lot more than a baseball & they are more difficult to catch. Once we have done this, baseballs stick to our players gloves like they’ve been tarred because the boys are used to catching the baseball’s bouncy cousin, the tennis ball.
A side bonus to this–if you want to get your younger players more interested in practice have their dads get involved on the days we do this. The parents pretty much have to drag their kids away from practice & everybody knows that a kid who wants to be at practice will learn twice as much as a kid who doesn’t.