The Swing
This drill is for getting the turn into the swing.Use a “T” for this batting drill.

•     Take proper stance at home plate with “T” in front of plate.
•     Place bat end on belly button and angle or point bat back at appx 45 degree angle.
•     Freeze that position of the bat.
•     Then small step toward pitcher, squash the bug hard and fast, turn those hips and hit the ball.
•     Do not move that bat from the belly or change the angle.
•     Do not use hands except to hold the bat in the original position.

Repeat 10 to 15 full hard twists. Take a break then step back up and use the same body turn but add a full swing this time for 10 to 15 reps.

Catch Above the Waist Drill
Young or inexperienced ball players have a lot of trouble catching balls above the waist.

I teach them the “HI” method. Take the glove off and wave and say “Hi”.  Put the glove back on and say “Hi” to the ball as it comes to you.

It is an almost instant fix to glove position for balls above the waist.

Glove Positions
I start with simple positions: over the left shoulder, below the right knee and such.
What I do is I take their glove away and make them catch with their hand at several places; then they take their glove and catch the same places.

Ground Up Drill
Another drill that I do is call the “ground-up”drill. This to help them learn to field ground balls from the ground up, instead of from the up position reaching down.
We bounce this drill, dropping their gloves and bending their knees to slap the back of the glove to the ground.

It doesn’t take long for them to realize when they miss grounders most of the time it is because of poor glove positioning.

Glove Toss:
Object is to reverse tosses on the coaches command using good low toss without dropping the ball.

4 players get in square formation.
Players start with glove tosses around the square as quickly as possible.
Coach calls out “Switch”, players have to reverse the direction of the tosses.

Side-Step Pass:
Same concept and formation as Glove toss game except using side-step pass.

Suggestions for both games:  Have players compete against each other by having multiple groups of 4 going at the same time.  Have players count the total number of successful passes, most passes wins, be creative on reward for winning group.

If you don’t have enough for 4 in a group you can improvise with 3 in a group and make a triangle formation.

Pepper Game:
This is a game to Work on hand/eye coordination and quick glove/reaction. Object of the game is to be the last player in the game and successfully field one last hit to be the winner.

4-6 players make semi-circle approx. 10 feet in front of coach in fielding stance w/ gloves.
Coach hits ball back to players at random.
Player that catches the hit pitches the ball back as quickly as possible to the coach who hits it again.
Player that misses the hit ball is out.
Players must give the coach a good pitch to hit; if it is a bad pitch player is out.
Suggestion:  Repeat the game 3-4 times.  Have players rotate where they are in the semi-circle, don’t go to the same spot to start the game each time.  Have the winners of each game play a final game to determine overall winner for the day.  You can have a reigning “Pepper Queen” until someone knocks her off her thrown at next practice.

I’ve seen the flat fielding gloves in stores at extreme prices.  So I went to the nearest dollar store (or sundries/beach store) and purchased a couple sets of “scatch paddles” (those velcro paddles and tennis ball catch games).

Poor Man’s Soft Hands Glove Drill

• I set up 3 or 4 players ,with paddles on their glove hand, between first and second.
• Coach stands near the mound with 2 baseballs and rolls one at first player who fields it by trapping it against the paddle with throwing hand (alligator style) and throws it back to coach.
• While this throw is coming back,the coach rolls a second ball to the next fielder, etc.all the way up/down the line of players.

Using this paddle forces the player to field correctly using proper stance, technique and hands position while also making fielder “look the ball in to the glove”.

Things to stress:
1. Nice triangle position (paddle reaching out in front of feet when fielding)
2. Low butt (bend legs, not waist)
3. Paddle perpendicular to ball
4. Look ball all the way to paddle (“show the beanie of cap”)
5. bring ball up the body and use good foot work

Another coach and 3 or 4 players can be placed between 2nd and 3rd to get more players involved.  You can increase the level of difficulty by throwing “one-hoppers”, off right, and off left to stress getting in front of ball.

Paddles really force proper hands placement and body placement (must use proper technique or ball will ricochet away).  Paddles may break or pieces fall off over time but you can buy several sets for the price of one specialty glove.

Power of Positive Feedback

I always try to encourage my team to think positive. For example, if they miss a ball, don’t look at it as a bad thing and beat themselves up over it. Rather, accept that the ball was missed and look at why they missed it and how to improve it for next time after it is thrown to the right place.

Also get them to visualize their desired outcome, e.g. hitting the softball into the outfield, rather than thinking negative where they are not as confident and could be more likely to miss the ball or not hit a great hit.

Pitching Machine Competition

I like to place my pitching machine on the edge of the outfield and then turn the pitching area into home plate. We have 200 foot fences and not all of my 10 year olds can reach it.

I give them all 10 pitches, the player with the most homers gets a candy bar and a ice cold coke. The kids and parents love it.

Fielding Drill

This fielding drill has worked to keep my girls moving and throwing.

Everyone line up at 3rd. First girl fields a ball throws to first, sprints to SS fields and throws,sprints to 2nd fields and throws,sprints to 1st fields and tags bag. As the first player is sprinting between bags I start with the next player fielding at 3rd.

Very fast paced and my players love this drill.

First, I use the Alligator drill. It works well for anyone on the team but especially the younger ones.  The other drill that I learned at a camp works really well on teaching this age group to get their hands out in front.  I call it the “Defensive Bat Drill”.

Defensive Bat Drill

Put a bat down on the ground and have the player stand behind it a couple of feet.  Roll the softball toward the bat and teach them to field the ball in front of the bat–-of course without stepping on the bat.

This just helps them learn to keep the glove out in front of them and again works great with the Alligator drill for beginners.

Call Your Name Drill

Here’s another good softball drill for kids 7-10 years old.  Have fielders on the infield in a line with their backs to you. Throw grounders to them and as you throw them call out a name.

They have to turn toward you in the ready position and quickly track the ball into their glove to make the play. Kids enjoy this drill and it helps them to learn to quickly track the ball off the bat.

Conditioning/Baserunning Drill

Have an equal number of players at each base (home, 1B, 2B, 3B ).
The first player in line at each base starts at the same time on the coach’s command.

The runner at home takes an imaginary swing (with a bat) and sprints through 1B (hitting the front of the bag), and breaks down as she would had she just hit a single.

The runner at 1B sprints to 2B on an all out steal, sliding to the outside of the bag (as if a throw is coming from the catcher).

The runner at 2B comes off the bag as if a fly ball is hit to RF, returns, tags up and sprints to 3B executing a pop-up slide.

The runner at 3B comes off the bag hard, dives back into 3B turning her head away from the field (as if a throw was coming to 3B), then jumps to her feet and sprints home ensuring she touches the middle of the plate.

We go through this drill long enough to have every player go through all four bases at least two to three times.

Fishing the catcher–Put your infield in place.  Have a pitcher throwing to a catcher.  Have some baserunners rotate running from first base.  Out of the pitcher’s release, the baserunner at first takes an exceptional lead off (around 8 feet) just enough so that the catcher thinks she can throw her out.  As soon as the catcher attempts the throw to first we immediately turn and explode to second (going in with a slide).
*This seems to work well with younger age groups (10U, 12U)

Another softball drill I use frequently is a 2-line base running drill. I love to use this to simulate nearly every base running scenario and do it in a 10 to 15 minute time window while getting decent base running conditioning in as well.

I have also used this same drill as practice for pitchers to work pick offs at each base as well by picking a base to go to, or putting a play on and having the runners react accordingly to a pick off move, then going through the sequence when the pitch is delivered home.

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Take an old piece of carpet (or like a padded moving blanket) – 18″ x 36″.
Punch two holes in the top two corners of the carpet and attach two clips.
in the middle of the piece of carpet draw a target or a picture of a hand or glove
(this would depend on if you are artistically inclined.)

Attach the carpet to a fence and predetermine a distance that the kids should throw from and give them a bucket of softballs (8-12 or so) and have them throw and hit the target as many times as possible.

This helps create accuracy. The softball coach can observe and instruct any changes to be made to technique and form.

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It works like this:
Everyone lines up at 3b with two players at 1B.
Each girl will take a grounder and makes a throw to 1B.
After throwing to 1B they go and cover 1B.
After everyone goes through the line at 3B the drill is repeated for SS, and 2B making throws to first.

On balls hit to 2B the girl playing 1B must yell out “flip” or throw” depending on how close the 2B is to 1B when she catches the softball.  After we complete the infield, the line goes to RF and 2 girls go to 2B.  The right fielder takes a pop fly or grounder; crow hops and makes a throw to 2B.

This is repeated with CF throwing to 3B and LF throwing to home.  We go through this softball drill twice at the beginning of each softball practice.

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