Instant Expert Cheat Sheet – How to Teach Your Child To Play Baseball

It’s funny how children and adults approach new experiences differently.  As a father, I was slightly worried about how Book Boy would do at his first ever baseball game last week.  Book Boy, on the other hand, was a bundle of excited energy!  There were some kids who could play really well (obviously had played for a couple of years) and there were others (like Book Boy) who were just starting out.

So as his Dad, I’ve taken it upon myself to find some ways to help Book Boy accelerate his baseball learning curve through games, practices, colouring sheets … anything … and you’re the lucky recipient of my research!  So here we go!

Necessary Equipment

All you really need are a baseball glove, a bat, a tee (when starting off) and some balls (soft ball, tennis/rubber ball, t-ball mush ball)

Throwing

1) Try to teach your child to throw the ball with three fingers (index and middle on top, thumb on bottom), and the ball should be out on the fingers (not in the palm of the hand) to increase accuracy and speed.

2) Arm should follow a circular motion when throwing the ball (or an overhand motion).  Remember the phrase “Thumb to thigh, fingers to the sky”. This means that you touch the thumb of your throwing hand to your upper leg and then make a circle with your arm so that your fingers are pointing to the sky as you deliver the ball.

3) Front shoulder should point in the direction where you want the ball to go so your body will be turned sideways.

Catching

1) Start to practice catch without the glove first to practice hand-eye coordination.

2) Teach your child to go to the ball and move themselves into a position to catch the ball (instead of just reaching out with their glove)

3) Tell them that if the ball is thrown to them above their waist, they should catch the ball with their fingers up and close their bare hand over the glove once they’ve caught the ball.  If the ball is below their waist, catch the ball with their fingers down then close their bare hand over the glove once caught.

4) For ground balls, play the alligator game. Have them put their glove, web-side up, on the ground in the spot where a ground ball is going. Once they have the ball in their glove, have them take their throwing hand and put it right on top of the ball. Their hand comes down on the ball similar to the way an alligator chomps down when it bites.

Hitting

1) Teach them to have a level swing.  The bat should swing through the hitting zone parallel to the ground.

2) Their eyes should be on the ball all the way to the point where it hits the bat.  Remind them to always keep their eye on the ball!

3) Get him some batting gloves. The shock of hitting the ball with bare hands will bother him and make his swing even more tentative.

4) We just attended a hitting clinic and here were the steps to hitting:

1-Load (get the bat in a ready position), 2-Step (not a huge one but a little one), 3-Swing (bottom of bat should be facing the pitcher), 4-Contact (hit the ball), 5-Extend (your arms), 6-Extend again (your arms), 7-Power comes from hips and legs (back leg should ‘squish the bug’ with heel up).

Practices/Drills/Games

1) If you’re a coach, have the team come up with their own name.

2) Make playing catch a game where you try and beat your high score on how many times you can throw the ball back and forth without dropping the ball.

3) During a practice, break the team into three groups; one group to focus on hitting, one on fielding ground balls and one on playing catch.

4) One game to consider is called Pickle. Put one adult on each base and throw the ball among them. The kids are supposed to run the bases without getting tagged out. If they are tagged, they go to the pitcher’s mound. If an adult misses a catch, there’s a jailbreak and the kids get to scatter to the bases. If the adults manage to get every kid onto the pitcher’s mound, the adults win (but this should get close to happening, but never happen).

5) Another game to consider is the Goalie Game: Set up two cones and place one kid between them. Roll and bounce tennis balls at him with the the goal being him to play goalie and stop the balls. Do this first without baseball gloves. It forces them to get down low to make the stops. Then when you add the gloves it is already natural for them to get down low to stop the ball. This was probably the single most successful fielding drill I ever used. It really works in getting the kids to stay down on the ball.

6) Get a big piece of cardboard (or a tire or hulahoop) and have a target for them to throw at.  Keep score.

7) A small reward (like a small stick of gum) can help keep motivation up.

Other Things

Here are some activity pages to help teach your young child about Baseball.

Lots of baseball mazes, word searches and colouring pages here.

A great site where you can make a baseball crossword puzzle (or use the one they have pre-made already).

Colouring pages for all of Major League Baseball’s mascots! (including the Jays of course!).

Have Fun!

This is the one that I forgot at the beginning (but have now remembered).  I recall fondly the weekend afternoons that my Dad and I would play catch in the backyard and I would love to recreate similar memories with Book Boy.  So remember to praise often, laugh a lot and have lots of fun!

Other Sites to Check out

There’s tons of info on the web.  Here are some links to my favourite web resources:

The Complete Pitcher – How to grip the baseball to throw different pitches (really for you because it’s cool, not really for your child)

QC Baseball – A great resource for youth players and coaches alike.

Metafilter – Some good community ideas at this Blog on how to teach young kids to play baseball.  Here’s another page on the same site with some great tips from a bunch of people.

Hitting A Baseball – A humourous take on coaching this skill.

AND FINALLY. . .

A Video of What You Want To Happen At YOUR Little League Game

I hope this helps you remember to have fun, play ball and GO JAYS!

(Royalty free images courtesy of stock.xchng – sxc.hu)

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