Clay Youth League: CYL NEWS AND MORE

By Cal Ripken, Jr.

Editor’s note: Each month in this space, Cal will address issues of concern to parents of young athletes. We hope that coaches, many of whom are parents, will find the information enlightening when it comes to working with their own children and dealing with the parents of the players on their teams. If you have a question that you’d like to see answered, please send it to newsletter@ripkenbaseball.com.

Question for Cal in this edition:

"What is a simple yet effective offensive and defensive sign system for an 11u baseball team?" – Coach Moran

I’m glad you’re looking for a simple sign system. All too often, coaches overemphasize the importance of an intricate and complicated sign system. In youth baseball, sign-stealing really isn’t all that prevalent, and often a simpler sign system can give you more flexibility to change things up when you think an opponent has picked up on a particular pattern or sign.

A simple sign system is easier on your players as well. At the 11u level, introducing signs is a great idea, as it will help players learn the basics of using signs in a game. When players move up to the 90’ diamond, more complicated plays come into use and a more developed sign system is necessary.

Here are the five basic elements of a simple sign system for your offense:

Indicator
Tells your players that the next sign in your sequence is "live" and should be executed. You can give all the signs you want in a sequence, but they're all meaningless except for those signs which immediately follow your indicator sign. Easy sign for indicator: touching the brim of your hat.

Wipe-Off
Giving your wipe-off sign erases the entire preceding sequence of signs. You could use your indicator and give the sign for a bunt or steal, but if you give your wipe-off sign, you've cancelled those signs and the play is off. Easy sign for wipe-off: brushing down the front of your pants.

Final Sign
There should be one sign that let's your players know the sequence is over, and they can take their lead off the base or get in the batter's box. Easy sign for your final sign: simply clap your hands and/or point at your batter.

Acknowledgement
Your players should give a sign back to you to let you know they understood your sequence. Easy sign for acknowledgement: adjust the helmet. Make sure your players give the acknowledgement sign every time, even when you haven't indicated a special play. Otherwise, your opponent will find it easy to know when you've put a play on. Note: If a player feels like they missed something in your sign sequence, they should ask you to go through your sign sequence again by giving you a sign similar to that used in basketball for travelling.

This system is a basic framework - you'll just need to pick which signs you want to use for the plays you want to call. You may want to keep this simple to start, keeping your signs down to just bunt and steal. Let your players get used to reading and responding to your signs, then add more signs for your more advanced plays, like hit and run or any special first and third plays you'd like to use.

One of the best features of this basic sign system is the flexibility it possesses. If you find the defense is always ready for what you're planning, they may have picked up on one of your signs. You can easily change things up simply by changing your indicator sign. Your players only have to pay extra attention to the new indicator, but now all of the signs your opponent thought were "live" are now "dead" signs that have no meaning.

So that defense that was creeping in whenever you called for a bunt may suddenly be surprised when a batter swings away after you've given the sign they thought stood for the bunt.

Typically, you'll only be using a defensive sign system when your opponent has runners on first and third. This is where any designed plays your team has in its repertoire will need to be called out.

An easy defensive sign system is to simply number the plays you'd like to call. For simplicity, let's say you have four defensive plays, and you've numbered them 1-4. Considering these plays are situation specific, you may only be calling them out once or twice in a game, so it's already going to be hard for your opponent to pick up on any pattern. But you may want to get creative in order to disguise these plays from your opponent.

Three-Digit System
Shout a three-digit number from the dugout, and make sure your catcher repeats the number to your defense. One of the digits will need to be the number of your play. Your players will just need to know which digit they should pay attention to, so tell them before the game that your defensive plays will be called on the first, second or third digit. Take your plays numbered 1-4, and make the second digit live. Call out "432" and play #3 is active. Call out "921" and play #2 is active.

To get more advanced, number your plays in a non-consecutive order, use bigger numbers or expand the number of digits in which to conceal your actually play call.

Catcher Counting Sign
Using the same numbering system for your plays (1-4) you can also have your catcher call the play through signs given to the infielders. You see major league catchers doing this all the time. They stand up, walk out in front of the plate and run through a series of signals.

This will look really advanced, but you can keep it simple by choosing one particular sign which will count. The catcher can give all the signs he wants, but the defense only needs to pay attention to the "counting sign" - the particular sign that your catcher will only go to 1, 2, 3, or 4 times in any sequence.

For example, sliding the hand across the chest is the "counting sign" in this example. Your catcher may go through a sequence of touching his mask, sliding his hand down his sleeve, touching his belt, touching his shoulder, and sliding his hand across his chest. Your players just need to count how many times the catcher slides his hand across his chest in the entire sequence. If he does it three times, you've called for play #3.

Try these simple sign systems with your team. Let them grasp the concepts of how the system works, then work more advanced signs into your system.

By Cal Ripken, Jr.

Hearing Billy’s story about his son’s experience in recreational baseball made me think of how painstaking practice can be for the youngest of players. Usually its the games which are the most fun and practice is typically where you have the strongest battle as a coach to keep kids from yawning.

We’ve all seen it. You’re walking by a field and a local youth team is practicing. The coach is on the mound throwing batting practice and kids are scattered around the field. They’re turning their hats around on their head, playing with the loose leather strands on their mitts and drawing shapes in the dirt with their cleats. One player is hitting, another is on deck and the rest shift around the field lackadaisically.

Everyone hits. Everyone goes home. That’s practice.

Billy’s example is hard to swallow and I hope a rare occurrence, but all too often what I just described is what happens at practices across the country. That reality leaves little doubt as to why so many kids move away from baseball as they grow older. Running a fun, efficient and effective practice is critical to helping your players develop their skills and also to foster their interest in the game.

Use small groups and stations to keep players engaged. One thing we’ve learned over the years at Ripken Academy is that to teach baseball effectively, you must make the practices as interactive as possible. Use a variety of drills or stations and break big groups into smaller groups. In the “batting practice” example above, we have one station, one big group, and a whole lot of players doing nothing.

You’re much better off having 3-5 stations going at once. That way, your team of 15 or so players breaks down into much smaller groups. This is where you’ll need to communicate well with the parents of your players. You’re just one coach, and you may or may not have an assistant. To run a great practice, you’ll need some additional help in order to have multiple stations going at once.

Study your players and adjust the length of your drills to accommodate their ability to stay focused. This is especially important with players under 10 or 11 years old, who do not have the same attention span as older players.

Keep your stations moving. As a general rule, with kids between the ages of four and six you should keep your practices to about an hour. When you jump up to seven, eight and nine year olds, you can tack on another 15-30 minutes. In the 10-12 age group, 90 minutes is about right and you can even push it a little longer if the players are especially engaged. So it helps to schedule out how your stations will break down in the course of your practice in order to make sure you cover everything you’d like within that limited amount of time.

You’ll also need to pay close attention to your players as the practice wears on. Some days it may just be scorching hot out and all your players may have a big birthday party to go to later – so maybe their motivation for practice is running a little low.

It’s okay to end practice early if you can tell your players are worn out or disinterested. At the High School level and higher, this mentality changes, but when you’re coaching a young team, you should be able to gauge the level of interest your players are showing in practice. Pushing a practice too long when your players have clearly checked out will only create frustration for both the players and yourself.

We all want players to be disciplined and practice the right way every time so that their skills grow and their play improves during games. But don’t lose sight of the fact that this game should be fun, even when it’s just practice. So, be creative as a coach – add some twists to your drills, include some contests, and make sure everyone is having a good time.

Sample Practice Plan
Here’s a great practice plan with some good examples of drills you can run to keep everyone moving through multiple stations. Take this plan and use it yourself, or treat this plan as a template and drop in your own drills and stations. For every practice, you should come prepared with a plan like this one. Organization is a big key to coaching young players effectively.

This plan is designed for players in the 10-12 age group.

Duration	Description
5 minutes	Dynamic Warm-Up Skipping, high-knee skipping, high-knee jogging, bounding, backward running, jogging.
5 minutes	Stretching Hamstrings, quads, groin, back, shoulders, triceps.
10 minutes	Throwing and Catching One-knee Drill (4 min) - Players work on arm action while throwing with their throwing-side knee planted on the ground. Power Position Drill (4 min) - Players stride into their throw and plant their front foot where it lands, pointing towards their target. Holding that position, players work on good trunk rotation in their throwing motion. Regular Catch or 21 (2 min) - Focus playing catch on delivering the ball to the chest or head. Playing the game "21" is a race to see which player can deliver the most accurate throws - one point is awarded for a throw to the chest, two points for a throw to the head, and no points for anything outside that area. First player to 21 points wins.
20 minutes	Team Fundamentals First-and-third offense and defense - Put your infielders in their positions and have everyone else run the bases. Work on both offensive and defensive plays in the first-and-third situation.
30 minutes	Stations (3 groups, 10 minutes at each station) Hitting - tee work and soft toss. Backhand Drill - players roll groundballs to each other, focusing on using the backhand with the proper form (wide base, butt down, glove out in front). Communication Drill - Players go to outfield positions. A machine or coach throws fly balls into the gaps. Players must use proper communication to make sure the fly balls are caught without confusion.
5 minutes	Big League Baserunning Players begin lined up at home plate, then progress through a series of running situations: (1) running from home through first base on a single; (2) lead off first, shuffle, crossover and run first to third, then jog home; (3) players line up at home again and then run out a double; (4) simulate scoring from second on a base hit; (5) finally, run out a triple or a home run.