Softball Free Drills and Practice Games – Rag Ball Junk Ball Hitting and Round the Horn Drill

Try these softball free drills and practice games with your teams.   They are an easy way to liven up your practices, work on skills and most of all, have fun. These two I use them for hitting and for fielding.

The hitting drill I call Rag Ball/Junk Ball Hitting. My favorite drill for fielding is an Around the Horn drill.

Rag Ball/Junk Ball Hitting
I set up two or three stations for hitting each practice.   Instead of hitting a typical batting practice I have the kids hit old socks wrapped in wide masking tape off cones into a fence.   Another station hits the same “rag balls” in a soft toss drill.

We also use an open area of the field to hit used tennis balls and squeeze balls from live pitching.   The players not hitting gather up the balls and get them back to the proper station.   My goal is to have all players take at least a hundred swings per practice.

Round the Horn Drill
My favorite drill for fielding is an around the horn drill. The catcher throws the ball to first, first to second with short taking the throw.   Short takes the ball to third and third home.   The drill reverses at home and goes to third, then to second with the second baseman taking the throw to first and back home.

I start this drill by simply counting the number of throws we can do without a drop. Later in the year we time the throws around the horn and back to the catcher.

The kids get so competitive and excited about beating their last record that I can’t get them to stop.