One of my readers, a Little League coach, sent this me these [tag]youth baseball drills[/tag]. The boys enjoy them and when the season starts other teams are amazed at the teams’ mobility.
Typically there are 12 players every season (11-12 year olds). Keeping all of the team mobile and interested in [tag]baseball practice[/tag] is always a challenge. I break the team up into 3 groups of 4 focusing on team play and skill building.
One of the groups will be with me in the infield practicing one of my favorites, the double play drill. One player at 1B, one at 2B, one at SS with a ball retriever at home. I usually throw the balls and will use a bat later in the practice season.
It goes like this: I will throw a grounder to SS. SS to 2B covering 2nd base, relay to 1B and back to home. I alternate the next one to 2B. 2B to SS covering 2B relay to 1B and back to home. Then ground to 1B. 1B to SS covering 2nd base, relay to 2B covering 1st base and back home. We then rotate 1B to 2B, 2B to SS, SS to Home, Home to 1B. We do this for about 20 minutes everyone gets in the action then we rotate the groups.
We sometimes use base runners to make this [tag]baseball drill[/tag] even more realistic and for real excitement I use a stop watch to challenge them.
Try to stress to learn from mistakes that everyone makes including yourself.