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Five parts to Fielding a Ground Ball. We do it on high school, we do it to college level, we do it at a little league players, you can do it whomever you have but it is important that they understand exactly what they are supposed to do.
Part number one, we asked other infielders, Brent is going to help me. We ask our infielder to get some momentum or some movement. We called this a Creep Step. For right handed end fielder, there is nothing more than taking a small step with this right foot, small step left foot and opening his hand. Are you ready? Creep right, left, open. He is in position right now to run to his left, he can run to his right, he can go backwards, or he can go forward at a dead sprint, that need to stop, that need to stand up, drop down. He is whatever he needs to go wherever he needs to go. He is in position to do it.
After he gets this creep steps, part number two, we charged the ball. Rarely in a high school setting or below, do you have the situation where you do not charge the ground ball. When you get to college and hit a little bit harder or if you have to be a high school third baseman or you are really tied on the play that is a little bit different or first base for that matter. But for the most part you are going to charge the ball. We are going to add, we are just going to do building block. We are going to creep and then we are going to add in a charge. Ready, creep, charge, stop. On the charge, we want to come at the ball under control as quickly as we can. We do not want to overrun the ball because when we get there, we have to set up the field of the ground ball.
All right we are going to add in part three. So, we got creep and charge, so far. Part three is what we called our Breakdown Position. That is our position when in which we are going to begin the feel of the ball. Okay, ready, creep, charge, break down. On our break down you noticed that Brent has his feet a little wider than shoulder width. His heads down, we are going to show the top of the head. His right hand is on top, his gloves on the ground and it is extended in front of him. Okay, stand up and relax.
It is important that we extend the glove in front of us so that we can cradle the ball or cushioned at us as it comes to us. And we go right hand on top for this simple reason. Those of you to play in the end field recognize this as a problem. When we are playing with little guys, eight, nine, 10, 11, or 12 years old, the normal reaction to a ground ball coming at is to do this, return the head. The reason we turn heads is because we are afraid we are going to be hit in the face. I think everybody has that fear. At least, at some point in your life, I know I sure did.
In order to correct that fear or to take care of it, we take the right hand and put it on top, this way. If we happened to get it bad hop we can take that hand and keep that ball away from our face. The second thing that does that is it allows us to trap the ball in the glove. We called that our alligator, right here, that is our alligator, bat hop, hand comes up, good hop, alligator.
Par four, we are going to go from our breakdown to a fielding position. Ready, creep, charge, breakdown, he will hold it, not comfortable with this technique, field. He will bring the ball to his midsection. He will cradle the ball in and he is going to show me the top of his cap. Okay, relax, simple enough.
Now, we go to out part five which is our Throw, okay and this is exactly how we teach it. Ready, creep, charge, breakdown, field, throw, right to left, left to right, back up. So, the fifth part, we are going to take that right foot and we are going to step inside the left, square our shoulder to our target, shoulder, hip, and knee and make our good strong throw. I can do this with 15 kids, one player, 10; it does not make any difference. I can do it just like this. Ready, creep, charge, breakdown, field, throw, very nice, let us do it one more time. Creep, charge, breakdown, field, throw. Good enough Brent.
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