I had a pitching lesson last night with an eight year old girl that has good core talent. We have been working together off and on for a few months now. In fact, her minor’s team wasn’t really doing anything for her so she often practiced with our majors team. Anyway, last night we were dodging lightning bolts so I decided to show her a few basic drills.

I have to admit, I thought this practice was pretty boring. We started in the dugout w/ a simple flip drill, then once it stopped raining, we moved to a basic one knee drill. That is pretty much all we did.

Her response? She told her dad that was the funnest practice she ever had???? Amazing!

Don’t ever forget the effect you have having on the children you coach. They are sponges, they absorb everything you say good and bad. How about we all try and be a good influence?

What is the greatest thing a kid ever said about you?

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• Live video of being hit by lightning

Both my softball and my baseball team hold pitching practice once a week. The improvement we see over the course of a three month season is phenomenal. Pitching is the most important part of the game and should never be ignored.

Stretch vs. Windup

This is a debate that I have going with a number of coaches in a variety of leagues. My opinion? Teaching the stretch position is lazy coaching. OK, there are exceptions to this rule, but very few. A few reasons why you would want to start from the stretch:

1. The kid is all over the place and hasn’t developed the motor skills to control the additional motions.
2. The kid has difficulty getting his arm “back” in the proper throwing position.
3. The kid’s head won’t stop bobbing and needs to be kept still.

Other than that, I can’t think of any other reason at a young age to pitch from the stretch. The fact is, in the first few weeks, a kid will definitely struggle from the wind up. In the long run though, throwing from the windup give them more power and helps them to keep their momentum going towards the plate. They have their whole life from age 12 up to learn the stretch position, now teach them to pitch properly from the windup and they will be better in the future for it.

Pitching from the windup is a natural progression if you have taught them to throw properly during regular practices. The two step throw lends itself to the windup position. Proper techniques are what baseball is all about. Teach, repeat, demonstrate, repeat, teach, repeat, demonstrate, repeat. My teams can finish my sentences because I stay on message at ALL times. This is essential to the sport and requires that I have a plan and technique that I am teaching.

The good of it all

All in all, the real key is proper technique and repetitive practice. So many times I see teams standing one the field in a line taking grounders. One fields while 11 watch. This is a horrible injustice to the kids. Most of our teams are at least competitive by the end of the season because we drill them to death. We make all drills games and then they are having fun and don’t even know they are practicing! Do it on the fly, make up a reason to get points for accomplishing something, they love it! Want them to run faster? Take out a stop-watch and make up times, they don’t know or care, they are just trying harder because it is a game, a competition. And isn’t that what we really want? Our kids learning to compete at the highest level they are individually capable of?

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