Baseball Moms

The link below will take you to a blog that I ran into the other day.  The post is quite funny.  I wish I had thought of it.  The descriptions of the “13 Types of Baseball Moms” is pretty much spot-on in my view.  If you spend a lot of time around baseball fields then I’m sure you have seen numerous […]

A player’s Check Engine light

Stats are often overrated and never tell the full story.  However, if you are at the lower levels – anything below pro ball – and you are hitting around .250 or your ERA is over 5 or you are averaging an error a game, your “check engine” light is blinking.   A player might say […]

Video – Tips for an underhand toss

About three years ago I did a written post listing the fundamentals of an underhand toss.  For those visual learners, here is a video that covers what I think are the most important aspects of this basic play. Next post: A player’s Check Engine light

Do you always succeed in practice?

If you typically succeed most of the time in practice then you are probably not practicing correctly.  Practice is a time to challenge yourself to push beyond what you think you are capable of doing.  It can be uncomfortable but that’s how growth occurs.  An analogy would be building muscle.  If you workout using comfortable […]

Draftability

This time of year (Fall and into Winter) scouts begin to check in with many of the 2015 top prospects and their families.  What they are trying to gauge is a player’s “draftability.”  Draftability includes a number of things but the basic concept is that the organizations are trying to figure out how much time […]

Awareness pays off for one MLB player

The MLB regular season is fast coming to a close and several teams are battling it out for the last playoff spots.  One such fight is between the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals.  As I write this, the Tigers have a 1.5 game lead over the Royals in the American League Central Division.  […]

Awareness Game #3

My past two posts have been about two games that players and coaches can play during games to improve field awareness.  Today is Part 3 of a three part series and involves another game that players can play in their minds while watching a game.  I guess it could be called the announcer game. Being […]

Awareness Game #2

Yesterday, in Part 1 of this three part series, I talked about the importance of being aware of your surroundings both on and off the field.  I also addressed the difficulty of teaching our players how to be more aware.  At the end of the post I offered an Awareness Game that could be played […]

Awareness Game #1

I live in Pennsylvania but a growing number of people are moving to our country’s 51st state – the State of Oblivion.  For a variety of reasons, people seem to be less aware of what is going on around them.  I think the cell phone is the biggest culprit.  Everyday in school, hundreds of teenagers […]

Angles for pitchers when covering first base

When pitchers practice covering first base during PFP (Pitchers Fielding Practice) drills, they often are instructed to take an ideal path and angle to first as shown in this photo … The reason for this is that going to an imaginary spot about 6-8 feet from first base, making a slight left turn, and moving […]

Pitchout tips for catchers

Today’s video tips are for catchers who want/need to improve on pitchouts from the pitcher.  I don’t get into everything a catcher needs to be concerned about because that would have taken too much time.  In this segment I chose just a few things catchers should be aware of when performing the play. Tomorrow’s post: […]

The louder it gets the softer you throw

The title of today’s post is a phrase I heard Jamie Moyer say during a Phillies broadcast.  It was a big moment late in the game and the hometown fans (the Phillies were away) were quite loud.  His co-announcer asked him how pitchers deal with these situations where they can hardly hear themselves think.  Moyer […]

The cross-over myth of base running

Virtually every player and coach I know (this includes me) was taught that the first movement on a steal attempt is to throw your entire left side towards second base and cross the left foot over the right one.  Any half-step or backwards step by the lead foot was considered a waste of time that […]

Old school is becoming New School

I’m told it was Bobby Knight who said “I’m so old school that I’m new school.”  Although the Bobby Knights of the coaching world may never come back completely, there does seem to be more and more research coming out that discredits much of what we would consider “New School.”  And that’s a good thing. […]

Tips and drills for getting the most out of your throwing arm

I’ve done many years of instructing and in my opinion, reteaching a young player how to throw properly is by far the hardest thing to change.  Today’s video passes on some tips and drills that hopefully can result in more players learning the proper throwing motion.  Obviously, the sooner they address these throwing issues the better.  […]

Baseball and the OODA Loop

September 1st of last week was the anniversary of the start of World War II.  After the war officially ended, a young man by the name of John Boyd enlisted into the Army out of high school and later entered the Air Force after college.  Little did people know that Boyd would go on to […]

Correction

Welcome to another week everyone!   I need to make a correction on a video I posted a little while ago.  The post was called Footwork for holding runners at first base.  In the video I mentioned that according to the rules, the only player who is allowed to be in foul territory is the catcher. […]

Upset at your grounds crew?

This was not supposed to be the post for today but I thought I’d pass on an article a good friend sent me.  It will give you a pretty good laugh heading into the weekend. This is for the coaches out there who get frustrated at the lack of concern on the part of many […]

Young players and their eyes

I regularly get questions from first time coaches at the younger levels asking basic questions about the game.  This leads me to wonder if my tips and techniques that I write about and show in my videos are too advanced for these beginners.  If you fall into that category of a novice baseball parent or coach then […]

Improve your practices with “Contextual Interference”

Psychologists have long wondered how people learn and remember things.  Teachers as well as coaches also have an incentive to find those answers.  Often what we do in the classroom and on the field is geared towards teaching new information with the goal of long-term retention.  Unfortunately, lots of psychological studies seem to indicate that […]

The first-move steal play for first basemen

Today’s video tip is again for first basemen.  It involves the play where a runner on first base breaks to steal on the first movement of the pitcher – usually a left hander.  Getting the ball quickly and creating the best angle possible in the goal. Tomorrow’s post:  Improve your practices with “Contextual Interference”

Footwork for holding runners at first base

Happy Labor Day!  On that note … why don’t we have a “Capital Day” to commemorate all the entrepreneurs and business owners who risked their own capital to start businesses that turned into those jobs?  I’m just sayin’. Anyway … when you watch first basemen at the major league level, you are bound to see a […]