Playing Catch Practice …the most disciplined part of our time spent at the yard?

“Hey kids, grab this bucket of balls and go loosen up your arms. We start practice in 10 minutes.”

When we say this to our team we are effectively saying, “Hey kids, go spend some time on the most important skill in the game, unsupervised, with no structure or discipline, and then we’ll get going.  As we practice, you guys will screw up throwing and catching, the drills will be a mess, then I will get frustrated and yell at you.”

Have a Great Practice - Every Day

‘Playing catch’, ‘getting loose’, ‘warm up’; that time-honored ritual at the start of any day at the ballpark is often the downfall of a youth baseball or softball team.  In most cases unfortunately, the mindset for playing catch is we are checking off a box, like carrying gear to the filed, so we can get started with practice.  The fact is playing catch sets the tone for practice and develops the skill off of which everything done defensively builds off.

Do we place a proper value on the time our kids spend playing catch? Do we work at it?  Do we establish and maintain discipline in the activity?  Do we have a plan for what we want to accomplish? 

I am stating, emphatically, that the activity of playing catch is the most important ten minutes we spend at the park.  We want this be the most focused, most disciplined, and hardest working part of a practice; not just for the kids, but for us as coaches.  If we were to pick one aspect of practice to give our full attention and effort as a coach, it is the time our kids are playing catch.

Mindset Adjustment

Let’s change our mindset for this activity – Right Now.  From this point forward let’s approach the playing catch segment of practice as a Drill.  The term ‘drill’ sets in the mind of a player that the activity is important and is time dedicated to skill development.  For coaches this is a structured, disciplined and supervised activity that has clear objectives.   See the Playing Catch Practice page on this site.  It is one of the least visited pages.  It should have as much traffic as any other page.

The first thing we want to master as coaches is running a great ‘Playing Catch Practice’ routine - every day.  If our kids do a great job of playing catch, the rest of the day operates much better than we might have imagined. When kids play catch correctly and with a purpose, the quality practice time and our team’s overall play skyrockets. 

Thoughts From Cal Ripken Jr.

Don’t take it from me, listen to Cal Ripken Jr.  In his book he states (I paraphrase), “I can walk into a ballpark, watch both teams playing catch before a game and from that simple observation tell you who is going to win.”