The Little League Coach

Quick Play Drill

I found this pretty cool "quick play" drill at the Ohio Fastpitch Connection. They have a ton of drills on there, but most of them are not my style, too slow. I prefer drills that keep all the kids active and moving and simulate game situations. The "quick play" drill almost does this, so we modified it slightly. Follow is what we did.

Original Was Slow

The original quickplay drill had 2 lines of players w/ 5 balls lined up, grab one, throw to first, grab the 2nd, throw to first, etc. This is a great drill in and of itself, and if you only had 3 or 4 players max working on it, that would be fine. We have 12 to keep busy though and I hate to see kids standing around!

The Fix

To counter this we modified the drill. I added a catcher to the mix. Then had the 3B throw to 1B and 1B throw to the C. The problem with this was it slowed down the "quick play" portion of the 3B. So we added a "suicide" effect to it to help w/ conditioning also! Likewise, we set up a bunt station just outside of 3B. We had the kids leave their bats and hats at the bunt station and carry their gloves with them. (Of course we had a pitcher/catcher combination working at all times!)

It worked great! One of the best practices we had!

Here is the rotation:

Coach places the 5 balls in a line from 3B to home plate
3B runs to the first ball and throws to 1B
1B throws home and catcher simulates a tag
3B backpedals (very important skill) to the 3B position and then charges back up to the 2nd ball. (This gives the 1B time to throw to the C)
This is repeated until all 5 balls are thrown to 1B and C
After the 5th ball, the 1B runs to 2nd and slides, then gets in line at the bunting station.
The C runs through 1B and gets in line there.
The 3B moves to the C line
The bunter goes and gets in line at 3B. (now that I think about it probably would have been better if we had our bunt station behind 3B, but we will update that next time)

Having at least one extra player at each station gives the players a chance to catch their breath and get all of their things in order for when it is there turn to perform.The coach has plenty of time to place the balls while the girls are moving up, but he has to be quick. Keeping this thing moving is the key to its success and increases the "fun factor" for the kids. They are moving and conditioning and don’t even know it!

Don’t be afraid to take things you know and modify them slightly. The kids love the variety and it keeps them focused at practices. This is very important as it is easy to lose them and then everyone is wasting their time. Do you have any cool drills that you modified to make them more exciting? Let’s hear about them!

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Third Base/Key Attributes

Image via Wikipedia

Key Position

Your third baseman must have a very strong arm. They also need to have quick reflexes because this is referred to as "the hot corner". Many shots are hit at third basemen and often they don’t have time to think, only to react. They also need to have "burstability" because they have to be able to cover the bunt quickly.

Accuracy Counts

Third base should have a strong accurate arm. The must be right handed because a lefty cannot make the throw to first or second w/o rotating.

Key Characteristics

Here are some characteristics of a good second baseman :