On Saturday, the Little League team that I coach had their first practice since the COVID-19 outbreak began. In this story, I am going to take you through what we did in our first practice back.
After we had introductions for some of the new players on our team, we had the kids go through some drills. This drill is called the knee drill, and what we have them do is really work on how to throw the baseball. They hold the ball with a four-seam grip, and really focus on getting their wings and their cobra before they throw the ball.
After the knee drill, and playing normal catch and long toss, we had them do another drill called the pick drill. What this drill does is make them have to field the ball out in front of their body because the closer their glove is to their body, the more likely it is that the ball eats them up and they make an error. Here is Mikey Godoy, and he has his hat in his mouth so it forces him to field the ball out in front because if he doesn’t, then he won’t be able to see the ball and he’ll make an error.
After the pick drill, we hit the players ground balls. We want them to first charge and split, and that means they charge the ball, then split their feet so they can field the ball in the middle of their body. Then they gather it up, take a couple of hard shuffles towards their target, then they get their wings and their cobra, and then they throw the ball and they follow the ball towards the target for a few feet after they release the ball. Here is Caelum Sherman working on his gather, shuffle, and throw.
Since these players are 12-years-old they have graduated out of Little League, so they move up to Pony Baseball next year. One of the things they have to learn is how to get leadoffs and dive back to the base head first when the pitcher tries to pick them off. Here is Jake Wells taking a lead off the throwdown base that is just outside of the frame.
After they took ground balls, we split the players into three groups, a hitting live group, a tee group, and a shag group. For the hitting group we had them go either three rounds or 12 minutes, whichever came first. They got five swings in their first round, then five pitches in their last two rounds. Here is my brother Tyler Paige swinging at a pitch.
In the shag group, we had our guys work on their charge and split and fielding the ball out in front. Here is Jacob Godoy fielding a ground ball and throwing it back in to the infield. Jacob is a sophomore who plays on the Lakewood High School Baseball team.
Finally, we went to the tee group. On the tee, we had them do the jump back to go forward drill. So what they did was take a jump backwards towards second base, then they pushed off their back foot and hit the ball. What this drill makes them do is really push off their back side because that is where they are going to get their power from, and it makes them have to hit the top half of the baseball. Here is Mikey Godoy working on the jump back to go forward drill.
After we were done with hitting, we had them do some brief conditioning. By the time we were done with that practice was over. That is what my team did during their first practice back from COVID-19.