Category: Infield
Type: Tip
Equipment: glove
Venue: Indoor & Outdoor
GLOVE WORK FOR FIELDING GROUND BALL
This is the third part in a succession of tips for fielding a ground ball. This part we will talk about our glove work in fielding a ground ball for infielders.
After we have our approach and footwork ready and are in our two triangle formation, we can now go to work on the ball with our glove. We firmly believe that we have to go and get the ball being VERY aggressive to it. There are many philosophies out there that tell you to field the ground ball by making a rounded 'L' to your belly as you field the ball...however, we think that as you field the ball, your glove should be going to it (attacking it) instead of moving away from it in the 'L' theory.
So, our gloves literally go out to the ball and up. This allows us to get rid of short hops that eat you up and forces your hands to go to the ball not letting the ball play you. At the beginning of the year we exaggerate this to the point that our hands go above our heads...as the kids understand how important it is to go to the ball, we don't require all of that exaggeration.
We make sure that our glove is ALWAYS presented from the beginning of the approach. Presentation requires the wrist to be broken so that the back of the glove is parallel with your legs, instead of the wrist being straight and having the back of the glove parallel with the ground. This eliminates the ball the roles up the arm or off the heal or front of the glove causing the ball to go elsewhere. We focus on trying to get the ball to hit the palm of the glove giving way to our 'alligator jaw' formation. This is what we call our throwing hand and glove together...they look like aligator jaws.
That's part three...part four will take care of the rest of the footwork and your arms as we get rid of the baseball.
Submitted by: CoachB
|
|
|
