how to catch groundballs?

Question

baseball, little league, young men,

Answer 1

A couple of tips... Bend your knees, gain ground on the ball as it is approaching you and force your hands out in front of your body so you can see the ball go in your glove. Also, try get around the ball and try to catch the ball off of your left ankle (not literally) so that you can get your momentum going toward your target easier. Another tip is to keep your head down as the ball is going in your glove. Show anyone in front of you the button on your hat.

Answer 2

1. An infielder's glove should never close except on line drives, so scoop the ball. Two hands
2. Glove on the ground or just barely not touching.
3. Try to keep the ball in the center of body when lining up.
4. Minimize hops so be aggressive and charge the ball whenever possible.
5. Catch on inside of left step. So feet aren't parallel, the left foot is stepped out a bit and ball should be just behind heel.
6. Head down closer to the glove. You're peaking in watching the ball. The catches are harder if the head stays up.
7. On backhand catches, glove down, head just behind elbow to get best view.

Answer 3

For little guys, you can teach them:

Alligator, Triangle...

With their feet spread and glove out front on the ground... a triangle can be seen from the point of the glove to the feet and obviously from foot to foot.

It helps to draw the triangle in the clay.

The alligator can be illustrated with the glove on the ground and the throwing hand making a "V" or a gator mouth on top of the glove.

With younger kids, a great drill is to lay a baseball bat on the ground horizontally.

Roll a slow grounder to the bat and have the kids move to the bat, keeping their hands out in front of the bat to field the ball.

If they do it right, give them 2 pts. At the end of the drill, the kid with the most points gets to count out 5-10 push-ups for the rest of the guys.

Some kids will be more advance than others. To mix it up, you can vary the speed of the grounder towards the bat.

For advanced players, you can use a "pancake" glove. (a glove with no pocket, more of a flat surface) Theoreticaly, you should use the glove to guide the grounder into the throwing hand with one motion. It's should not be "caught" and removed from the glove.

Pancake gloves are a bit pricy... I made them out of ping-pong paddles with a velcro strap. When tenths of a second count, getting the ball into the throwing hand is critical.

Another tip for coaching younger players is to teach them to "creep" towards the batter on the release of the pitch. I gets them to start moving forward rather than standing flat footed.

Good luck.

Answer 4

its important to keep your golve on the ground, its easy to come up at the last second if the ball bounces, but its harder to go down at the last second if the ball takes a bounce lower than expected.

try doing some drills using tennis balls and bare hands. the tennis balls won't hurt if they take a bad bounce and hit you, so players will get used to the idea of getting in front of a ball and get over the fear of it hitting them, the bare hands will make players get used to reaching all the way to the ground, then when they put a golve on they will naturally keep it right on the ground where it belongs

Always try to get in front of the ball if you can, backhanded catches look cool if its the only way you can reach the ball, but whenever you have time, get in front, this way if it takes a bad hop you can knock it down with your body and pick the ball up and still throw the batter out.
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Answer 5

First prepare yourself in a ready position, glove out, bend forward and legs apart. As the ball approaches, keep your legs apart and wider than your shoulders. Bend a bit on your knees. have the glove infront and in between your apart legs, make sure your body's infront of the glove so to have more chances of letting the ball bounce on smth and miscatch it, at least you have your body to block the ball.


As the ball rolls in your glove, do what you need to do and there it is.

Answer 6

be sure to put your non gloved hand over your glove (if your gloved hand is your left hand the glove would be on the ground and your right wrist would be touching your left wrist right above the glove) this will prevent the ball from rolling right up your arm and hitting you in the face, and help you get it out of your glove quicker to throw to a base, watch your fingers though so they don't get in the way of the ball when it's coming into your glove because that would hurt too.

Answer 7

First move to the ball, (run or shuffle)
bend at the waist and bend your knees,
lower your bottom, hands out in front of you,
glove on the ground and with the meat hand (non-gloved) cover the ball as it enters the mitt. (Alligator)

The last will prevent the ball from popping out and help the player get ready to make the throw or tag.

Answer 8

keep your glove down and stay on your toes. what you do is put your feet about shoulder with apart and put your glove almost touching, or if you want touching the ground. then it's really important to stay on your toes. that way you are ready to move. what you can do is when the pitcher is throwing take small steps toward the base always keeping one foot slightly infront of the other, this helps you stay on your toes. then you have to move to were the ball is.

Answer 9

1. move feet to ball
2. weight on balls of feet knees bent slightly
3. left foot slightly in front of right foot ( for right hand thrower)
4. extend hands forward (catch ball out front not under you)(back should be flat when you extend hands forward this lets you know you are getting ball out front of you)
5. hands must be lower than ball
6. throw hand covers ball as it hits palm of glove (dont catch in pocket)
7. dont catch ball in middle of legs try and recieve it toward left foot side of body )for right hand thrower.

Answer 10

bend your legs and put your glove in between them. keep the edge of your glove on the ground and just move to where the ball is