Verona Little League, Inc.: Coaches Corner

New coaches and anyone who has not attended a clinic before are strongly urged to attend the more in-depth Edgewood clinic. Head Eagles coach Al Brisack demonstrates a wide array of great drills and practice techniques. VLL will cover the cost of this clinic.

• March 25, 6:30-8 pm: UW Health Sports Medicine. Focusing on practice organization and mechanics for injury prevention. Free.
  Location: UW Health Research Park Clinic, 621 Science Dr., Room 1111a
  
• April 10, 5:30-9:00 pm: Edgewood College. Learn skill-building techniques and how to deal with on-field injuries and emergencies. Led by head coach Al Brisack. Cost covered by VLL. See flier below for signup information.
  Location: Edgewood College Todd Wehr Edgedome.
• April 2 (7-8 pm), 4 (7-8 pm), & 6 (3-4 pm): Greg Reinhard Baseball. Learn how to design great practices.
  Location: GRB Academy, 4009 Felland Road, Suite 114

Fliers for most of these clinics are in the handouts link below.

Rules for 2013 can be found through the handouts link below. One notable change for this year: pitchers may finish an at-bat to the current batter when crossing a days-of-rest or pitch limit threshold. They then observe rest required for the threshold crossed in that final batter, not the total pitch count. See the rules for the exact details of this change.

In addition, here is a document that describes the Little League pitch count rule along with a log for keeping track of pitching during a game.

Pitching Guide

Pitch Count Log

Some sites with useful youth baseball instruction and drills:

• Little League International Coach Resource Center
• Baseball Drills & Coaching Tips
• Quality Coaching Baseball

Practice plans (in the handouts link below) and videos are courtesy Brad D'Orazio, head coach of VAHS. Videos may take a minute to load depending on your connection speed.

Proper baseball throwing grip

Intro to throwing

Intro to the swing

Soft toss

All players must submit a Medical Release Form to you. Please keep them with your coaching gear so you have them whenever you are practicing or playing a game in case of an emergency.

Other useful safety information is in the handouts link below including important information for you and your players' parents about identifying and dealing with concussions. You should also visit the CDC's Heads Up campaign to increase awareness, diagnosing, and prevetion of head injuries. All players and parents need to read, sign, and return the Concussion Acknowledgement Form, which you or your team parent should collect and turn into the league.

• LineUp Manager: An Excel workbook with macros that can help coaches plan lineups, field positions, and stats. Free trial lets you track a few games.
• GameChanger: iOS & Android in-game scorekeeping app. Game review and stats are kept over a season for your team through their website.

Karl asks: 

Are you the home team playing the last game of the day on your field? If so, your team is responsible for "putting the field to bed". Find out how by - clicking here.