Four Steps to Organize Your Little League Practice

By John R Di Nicola

The only chance you have as a Little League Coach is try and get yourself organized. I have listed out the very basic steps to organize your practice. You have so so many constraints on you it very difficult to get all the practice completely covered. The amount of practice time is limited maybe to 3 days per week. Getting practice fields is a major problem in most instances. The length of practice is another. You cannot hold marathon practices three to four hour practices. Using a planned schedule will enable you to have practice that are fun for the players therefore they will learn what what you trying to teach them.

Scheduling Practice -

You have a such a short time to prepare your team usually about 3 to 4 weeks. It is important you are organized your practices so that you may over come the constraints that come with being a Little League Coach.

Getting Practice Fields

number of times you practices: weather, all players can make to all practices.

practicing to much parents complain
not practicing enough

Fielding, Defense, Pitching and Hitting

Fielding

Outfield
Infield

Pitchers

Pick off - 1st base, 2nd base, 3rd base, and covering home
Run downs

Out field: Cut off men, short stop, 3rd base, 2nd base, 1st base, Pitcher
Throwing to bases -2nd,3rd, home

Situations - Simulate a game situation with coach hitting and player running
Hitting Stations

Hitting off of a "T"

Soft Toss

Live Hitting - 10 swings

Bunting

Pitchers

Throwing a bull pen with catcher

You look at this say wow! You just have organize yourself. Make sure self a template (using Microsoft word) for your practice days. Plug in your dates. You can do A, B C, D and rotate them through your practice schedule. It is a must that you get parents to help. You will need at least two to help to run a practice. You will have to do two of these segments each day and possibly a third.

You will find defense is one of the most important segments you must cover everyday. You can never hit enough ground balls to your infield. So fielding must be done just about every day. You may want to have just your infield come and work on ground balls and going over where they positions themselves for cut off from outfield. You can do the same for pitchers. Bring the pitchers and catchers to practice their defense and working on their wind up and delivery.
Best thing a you can do is make sure you are organized! Stick to your schedule and make adjustments as you go. Please do not get frustrated and not follow an organized plan.
Practice Makes Prefect

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. If you would like further information on this topic or information you can E-Mail me at: jdinicola@easypitching.com

You can follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/easypitching

Web site: http://www.easypitching.com
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Two Situations Drills For Little League Pitchers

By John R Di Nicola

Once you have had a couple of practices and have had infield and outfield practice you can venture to the next step working on game situations. You set your 9 players in their positions. Have your spare players as base runners. Have them stand behind home plate and you hit ball. This is so important it enables you to practice your pitchers and position players real situations. You will have to have patience. At first they will throw the ball around and be out of positions.

Below are two drills that are very important in teach the fundamentals of defense.

Situations

Backing up 3rd base and home plate.

With nobody on base and ball is hit into gap pitcher should line up in between third base and home plate.

With base runners on first base and ball hit into gap they should do the same and watch and see where the play may be and make their decision which base they should back up.

With men in scoring positions and ball hit into the gap they should back up home. You have to make sure the pitchers have good distance from the foul line so they are not to close and have a good angle to go between third and home. The Pitcher must have depth behind the base so they get overthrown ball.

The mistake they all make is getting to close to base. Explain, they are backing up to get the overthrow. If they are to close they can't make adjustments. This defeats the purpose of them backing up the base.

Covering Home Plate on Pass Ball

This drill is very important because you will have passed balls at this level. Providing the backstop is not to far back it is an excellent way to get what I call a cheap out.

You can have signals for the pitchers to call out to the catchers. Most of the time the catchers will not be able to pick up which directions the ball has traveled.

You can use one, two and three. One being right, once he has turned to retrieve the ball. Two would be middle of backstop. Three would to the left. Organizing your practice set up your schedule and rotate your days you do the drills. You will find that some of the drills they will pick up quicker than others. The biggest thing is you cannot have marathon practices. By keeping the practices short and crisp you will keep players motivated. I found if you have a practice schedule and post it will show the players approximately how long each drill will be and what to expect.
Practice makes perfect.

By: John R. Di Nicola

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. If you would like further information on this topic or other information you can E-Mail me at:jdinicola@easypitching.com

You can follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/easypitching
Web site:http://www.easypitching.com,

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_R_Di_Nicola

Little League Baseball Drills

By Chris Campbell

If you've been lucky enough to have an opportunity to try and hit a fastball pitched by a professional, or semi-professional pitcher, then you know how hard it can be.

There have been a few crossover athletes, that move between baseball and other sports, that have tried their hand at doing just that. Micheal Jordan for instance was only able to bat around 200 when he played for a professional farm team. I don't think he ever performed that low on a basketball court for even 5 minutes.

While some drills can make you batting more effective, there's no substitute for quantity over quality in this scenario. It's simple, the more time junior can spend with a bat in his hand, the better. That means, hitting with mom, hitting, with dad, hitting with friends, or even older brothers / sisters. Have a bag of balls near that door, that makes it convenient to grab on the way out for a little practice time.

During a game of baseball, there's only one hitter at a time. And, during practice, there is also usually only one hitter at a time. So, if you do the math, it becomes pretty apparent, how little time your kids will get with a bat in hand during practice. Getting some practice time at home can make a huge difference in the early years.

Don't if your going to put in the time for extra hitting practice, there are a few things you can do to make practice more effective.

Get The Right Piece Of Wood

A bat that fits the player, is just as important as having baseball shoes that fit your feet. The weight of the bat is most important for good feed, as it can greatly influence the speed and timing of your swing.

There is a simple test for sizing a bat for your kids abilities. While standing, simply have them hold the bat out perpendicular to their body. If they can do that for at least 15 or 20 seconds, then the bat should be fine.

How A Batter Stands

While it may seem painfully obvious to most of us, make sure your kids have a solid understanding of where the strike zone is. it's fundamental to reaching all pitches, and is both a simple thing to do, and simple thing to forget to do.

It's pretty simple to ignore, but if your hitting a ball, you really should have a home plate to stand next to, and to pitch over. Even if it's just a rock, or an extra glove, make sure you use one whenever your having batting practice.

These Little League Baseball Practice, are meant to make practice fun. If your a coach looking for Fun Baseball Practice Drills, you've come to the right spot.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Campbell

Little League Player Benched Because Mother Failed to Work Concession Stand

When I read this today I just had to post it here. From the "yes this really happened" file....

From Foxnews.com

Little League Player Benched Because Mother Failed to Work Concession Stand
Thursday, May 15, 2008

A 7-year-old Massachusetts boy was benched during his Little League baseball game because his mother failed to show up to work the league's concession stand, and the mother isn't happy about it.

Jodi Hooper of Freetown said she was unable to fulfill her obligation at the concession stand because she couldn't get time off from work, according to MyFOXBoston.
Dave Brouillette, head of the Freetown Youth Athletic Association, told MyFOXBoston that the concession revenues are necessary to fund the league's programs and that he has to enforce the rules, which require parents show up for their assigned concession stand shifts or risk suspensions for their children.

Brouillette told the station that he wasn't able to see his own son play because he had to cover the concession stand shift for Hooper, according to MyFOXBoston. Hooper told MyFOXBoston that she believed she could make up the assignment at another time if she missed one.

TV news report... http://wbztv.com/video/?id=62376@wbz.dayport.com

OK.. I understand the parents have an obligation and the league loses money if the snack bar isn't opened. But is this baseball league actually defending benching/punishing a 7 year old kid for this? OK we don't really know all the facts here. Maybe the Mom didn't let anyone know she wasn't going to make her shift. Maybe she's done this before and had been warned. There could be a number of items. However, I do not agree... at all... with benching a young kid as a punishment to the parents for not showing up at the snack bar.

In all my years involved with youth sports I have NEVER heard of this happening. The Mom obviously contacted her local Fox news affiliate because she knew it would get immediate traction.

Hopefully the result will be the league changing it's policy. How about making parents pay an extra $30 when they register their kid. If they don't show up for snack bar duty, they lose their 30 bucks.

Don't take it out on the kid.

Coach Bob

http://youthbaseballblog.blogspot.com/

Little League.. What Are You Thinking?

I was reading through the 2008 changes to Little Leagues rules and found this curious note:

“A pitcher who delivers one or more pitches in a game cannot play the position of catcher for the remainder of that day.”

Can you believe this applies to ages 7 – 18? Are they serious? So if a 10 year old pitches to one batter and throws 5 pitches in the first inning he’s done as a catcher that day. Doesn’t this limit kids from becoming skilled at both pitching and catching?

So is it OK to pitch 5 innings, throw 80 pitchers then catch the entire game the next day… this rule allows this.

There are so many problems with this rule I can’t begin to write them.

I have to say this is one of the most absurd policies I have ever seen in youth sports. I hope LLB realizes it and retracts the rule. If my son was a pitcher/catcher playing in Little League I would be looking for a Cal Ripken league close by.

Now an acceptable rule would be if a player pitchers more than lets say 3 innings and throws more that X amount of pitches (fill in the X based on what’s appropriate for that age) he/she cannot catch the remainder of the game… and requires appropriate rest before pitching again.

Sometimes LLB just doesn’t get it.

Coach Bob

http://youthbaseballblog.blogspot.com/