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An Introduction to Baseball Bats
Whether you enjoy the crack of wood or the ping of aluminum, baseball bats are designed for players ranging from Little Leaguers to professionals. Baseball bats are crafted out of specialized woods, composites or alloys, and aluminum, depending on...
Coaching Sports For All The Right Reasons
The Glove It was during a March evening in 2002 that I received word that my grandfather was dying. I drove the four and a half hours to Ironwood, Michigan in a snowstorm to say goodbye. I was able to see my grandpa and he was able to recognize me...
How to Care for Sports Memorabilia
IT'S NOT JUST A HOBBY, IT'S AN INVESTMENT!
Many collectors of sports memorabilia have their collections in
their homes or offices without really showing regard to the
preservation and the protection of the items.
I was watching an old...
How to find the right paintball gun for you
Sports and hobbies have a special place in our lives. They are not just responsible for our physical and psychological development but also act as our best pals especially in times of aloofness. Since Homo sapiens are different by birth, they have...
No Excuse for Not Exercising
For many people in today's busy world it's quite easy to come up
with an excuse for not being in shape and exercising regularly.
Some of the more common ones are "I'm too busy", "There aren't
enough hours in a day", and "I'm so tired after work...
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My Top 10 Baseball Coaching Tips
If you are new to the game search out veteran coaches and ask for coaching tips. Find websites like this one that will teach you the fundamentals. What ever you do, always look for new ways to reach your players.
Times are different then when I grew up, and I have found that attention spans are short and patience is thin so you need these coaching baseball tips to find ways to keep practices interesting and competitive.
I hope these coaching baseball tips work as well for you as they have for me.
1. Have a preseason parent’s meeting. This should be mandatory for every team. More problems can be eliminated than you can imagine, if you plan this meeting right. Spell out your coaching philosophy, and parental behavior at games. Playing time is the #1 parental complaint. Deal with this up front at this meeting and you will avoid problems during the season.
Enlist your assistant coaches and find a couple of scorekeepers.
Inform them of the importance of punctuality in bring their kids to practice and picking them up after. Otherwise you will spend half your practice waiting for players to arrive, and spend your dinner hour waiting for them to be picked up.
The parents meeting is #1 of all my coaching baseball tips.
2. Find assistant coaches. You can never have to much help when coaching baseball. If you can’t find qualified coaches enlist the help of parents to help you run drill stations and handle administrative details like uniforms and scorekeeping.
3. Emphasize the fundamentals. The proper mechanics for throwing and hitting are seldom emphasized enough. Injuries occur when children use poor mechanics. Teach proper warm ups and insist they are performed before practice begins.
4. Have a plan and work your plan. If you are serious about coaching baseball take the time to develop a practice plan based on the skills you need to teach. Pick out the fundamental skill sets appropriate to your age group and practice drill and practice again.
5. Spend 30%-40% of every practice on pitching. This is why you need assistants. Someone should spend this much time at every practice with your pitchers. This does not mean they pitch all of this time, they can work on mechanics and drills like balance drills,
and towel drills. If the players can lead off at your age group, you would also include holding runners on and fielding bunts. Players should throw batting practice once they can throw strikes on a regular basis.
6. Teach every player how to bunt. Bunting is a lost art that needs to be revived. For the player who struggles to hit bunting can be a confidence booster and run producer.
7. Teach defensive movement. This is nothing more than having every player moving when the pitcher reaches the top of his windup. Nobody is standing flat footed. This also means that on EVERY hit ball, every player has a place to move to. If they are not catching or throwing the ball they must be moving to a backup position. Statues don’t play baseball nobody is standing and watching the play.
8.Emphasize aggressive base running. Run out every hit ball regardless of where it’s hit to. Come out of the batters box as if you are going for a triple, even if it’s a routine grounder or fly ball. Break on every pitch as if you are going to steal even when your not. A runner in motion puts pressure on a defense. They move out of position to cover the runner and base hits squeak though. Pitchers rush their motions when a runner breaks and lose their concentration. I believe in pressure, pressure, pressure when it comes to base running.
9.Praise in public and criticize in private. Remember these are kids we are coaching not adults. If you need to get on a player pull him aside privately and speak with him. On the other hand if you have something good to say share it with the whole team.
10.It’s about the kids Emphasize sportsmanship, discipline, teamwork, and persistence. Winning will take care of itself. Your job (should you choose to accept it.) is to help the players learn the game, enjoy themselves, and advance to the next level of the game.
These 10 coaching baseball tips do not include mechanics or drills but they do lay a foundation that will help show remakable improvement in your team.
If you have your own coaching baseball tips that you would like to share please email them to us and we will post them on this site.
About the Author
10 Year veteran of coaching youth baseball. Owner and webmaster of Baseball-for-Parents.com
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