In this practice we are going to spend some time working on 3 different ground ball fielding movements.
Front & Center
Attacking
Attacking Barehand
Below is a short video of each type of fielding play. A few important notes that will go for all of these fielding drills.
Keep your eyes behind and inline with the glove.
Present the pocket.
Work through the ball
Do not whip the glove down or flair the glove up.
Finish in a throwing stance.
The Front & Center is the classic way to field the ball that you have learned since T-Ball. It is to be used for a skipping ball directly at the fielder. Evaluate the hop and attack the short hop or back step for the long hop If able gain momentum towards first on the play.
The attacking play is when the baseball is rolling and we need to charge the baseball. We will initial get to the third base side of the baseball then field the ball working towards first base to have momentum for our throw. We will initially field the baseball around our left foot but as our body moves left it will center the baseball on our torso.
The attacking barehanded play is for a very slow rolling or dead baseball. We are charging this baseball as fast as possible to gain the out. When we go to pick up the ball it is very important that we keep our eyes locked on the ball until we have it secured and off the ground with our bare hand. When we come up to throw we still need to be nice and tall driving off our plant leg.
In many of our lessons you hear the phrase "Work Through The Ball." but many of the videos we watch it appears as if we should funnel the ball to our torso. We need to do both. We will work through the ball but as our momentum is commonly moving towards first our body many time will move forward faster than our hands and glove.