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Five parts to fielding a ground ball, we do it at high school, we do it at the college level, we do it with little league players, you can do it with whomever you have, but it is important that they understand exactly what they are supposed to do.
Part number one, we ask that our infielders, Brent is going to help me. We ask that our infielders get some momentum or some movement. We call this a creep step. For our right handed infielders, there is nothing more than taking a small step with his right foot, small step left foot and opening his hands. 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, 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 get these creeps steps;
Part number two, we charge the ball. Rarely in a high school setting or below, do we have a situation where you do not charge a ground ball? When you get to college and they hit a little bit harder or if you happen to be a high school third baseman, where you are real tight 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. Okay, we are going to add, we are just going to do a building block. We are going to creep and then we are going to add in a charge. Ready, creep, charge, stop. Okay, all right, back up Brent. On the charge, we want to come with 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 setup to field 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 call our breakdown position. That is our position in which we are going to begin to feel the ball. Okay, ready? Creep, charge, breakdown. On our breakdown, you will notice that Brent has his feet a little wider than shoulder width. His head is down, we are going to show the top of the hat. His right hand is on top. His gloves is 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 cushion it as it comes to us and we go right hand on top for this simple reason. Those of you that played in the infield recognized this as a problem. When we are playing with little guys, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 years old, the normal reaction to a ground ball coming at you is to do this. We turn the head. Well, the reason we turn the head is because we are afraid that we are going to be hit in the face. I think that everybody has that fear. At least at some point in their 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 happen to get a bad hop, we can take the hand and keep that ball away from our face. The second thing that that does is it allows us to trap the ball in the glove. We call that our alligator. Right here, that is our alligator. Bad hop, hand comes up. Good hop, alligator.
Part four, we are going from our breakdown to a fielding position. Ready, creep, charge, breakdown, he will hold it. Now, I am comfortable with this technique. Field, you will bring the ball to his mid section, he will cradle the ball in and he is going to show me the top of his cap. Okay, relax, simple enough.
Now we are going to 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, backup. 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 a good strong throw. I can do this with 15 kids, one player, 10, it does not make any difference so I can do it just like this. Ready, creep, charge, breakdown, field, throw. Very nice, so let us do it one more time. Creep, charge, breakdown, field, throw. Okay, good enough Brent.
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