Dealing with a ground ball can be tricky – you never know exactly how they’ll come off the next hop. So learning a variety of ways to scoop them up gives you the best chance of being able to handle every situation that comes up.
There are three ways I teach my players, from safest to quickest. They are the Infield technique, Dropping to One Knee technique, and the Outside Glove Foot technique.
Infield Technique
This is the safest of the three. Crouching down to get your glove right on the ground, keep your free hand over top of the glove, so that as soon as the ball hits your mitt, you can clamp down and secure it in there.
Dropping to One Knee
This is fairly similar to the infield technique, but instead of just bending over, the player will put their glove side knee down on the ground before bending over to scoop up the ball. This technique isn’t much faster than the infield technique, but taller players may find this easier to pull off.
Outside the Glove Foot
The riskiest of the three, scooping down to grab the ball with just your glove hand without breaking stride can look great and moves quickly, but if your technique isn’t sound, will often lead to a ball rolling right past you.
Make sure to run to the inside of the ball pat, ensuring that it outside your glove foot. This way you don’t run the risk of either foot getting in the way, and you can go right into your crow hop throw to the infield!
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