8U Fly Balls

[Fivensbaseball]

What are some good drills for an 8U team to get better at tracking fly balls and catching balls hit directly too them.....

[RodCarew]

I would start by throwing balls to kids from about 10-15 feet. Real easy can of corns.

Then move on to moving them right and left and gradually work your way to hitting fly balls.

what I see at the youth level around my area is that coaches skip steps in teaching fundementals to kids.

The route has to be from A to B to C to D...etc, it has to be a progression.

Too often I see coaches go from A to Z and skip all the steps inbetween.. then they get frustrated when the kids can't make routine plays.

[crazyhawk]

I have a 6 and 8 year old and went through this last year. I would start by playing normal catch to improve their skill. They always found "high balls" to be what they really wanted to do, so I ended with those. I would recommend that you do not use real baseballs. Use tee balls. I would start by handing them to tee ball and have them squeeze it and see that it isn't that hard and won't really hurt. I then would throw it up in the air about 5 feet and let it hit me in the head or shoulder. The kids crack up and see that it isn't that big of a deal. Then I would start throwing easy one's to them and work on that until they had that down pretty pat. This is the time to work on the correct way to catch a pop up and how to make the easy play. I see over and over on my boy's 8 year old team how they have players who can only catch a pop up one way. They need to learn how to turn that glove and catch it both ways.

As they progress, you can start to get some serious air under them. At this point, I still haven't hit any of the balls to the boys. I just throw them underhand as high as their skill level allows. After some time, you will want to start to get them tracking that ball and moving 20-25 feet in either direction. It was amazing to me to see how much of a difference it made in their catching ability if they have to run and catch. When I say run, I mean, really track a ball (not 5-10 feet). They dropped quite a few at the beginning when we did this. This took my boys about a week and now they can catch the balls with confidence.

You can also add things in to make it fun. We have a rule that if the second hand doesn't come into play....or they forget to yell "mine" or "I got it." that they have to skip a turn. The other boy will crack up when they forget and have to skip a turn.

The key is to add it into your daily catch playing with the boy and the rest is just repetition with emphasis on good mechanics.

[baseballdad]

At a recent practice I was watching a "coach"? fungoing fly balls out about 200 feet to a gaggle of players around 9 years old. I didn't see one catch the ball. They all made an attempt to get near where the ball was going but shyed away at the last moment. The coach just keep cranking them out, just yelling "get under it". What were those kids learning-what was that guy thinking?

[crazyhawk]

I know what you mean. At last night's baseball practice our coach worked on pop ups for about half of the practice and spent about 5 minutes on grounders and infield practice. Mind you, these 8 year olds have seen a total of about 5 pop ups all year, but have about 30 ground balls per game....you can see where the frustration was setting in for me. Oh, by the way....we suck at infield and are a terrible defensive team. The coaches can't figure out why that is, but they said they will get there!!:blah:

[rbgrubbs]

Progression on any skill is the key.....

Start small and work up. Start by playing catch..then work to "lobbed" throws...then to longer lobbed throws...then thrown "pop ups"...then [HINT TIME] I go toa tennis racket and "incriballs" and short pop-ups...then work your way out to longer and longer flyballs.....

This is how I worked with my son....who is now rck solid in the outfield.

[songtitle]

At a recent practice I was watching a "coach"? fungoing fly balls out about 200 feet to a gaggle of players around 9 years old. I didn't see one catch the ball. They all made an attempt to get near where the ball was going but shyed away at the last moment. The coach just keep cranking them out, just yelling "get under it". What were those kids learning-what was that guy thinking?

This is why the first thing you do as a coach is to determine who is in the infield, and who is in the outfield. Then practice accordingly.

[crazyhawk]

I think at 8 years of age, the majority of the players shouldn't be pigeon holed into infield or outfield yet. The kids should play both. They have so many years to get into the specifics of a particular position. The only position that I believe should be 1st base. You need to have a few kids who can routinely catch the basic throws.

[songtitle]

Your 8s might be too good already, but for 5-8s I would run 1 or 2 practices with outfielders taking high tennis balls. Don't worry if the ball pops out of the glove - it's a catch for this purpose. Let them get the fear out. When they catch, say 5 or 10 in a row, switch to baseballs. You could do the same thing with balls hit right at them.

After 1 or 2 practices the kids will say "oh no, not more tennis balls", then you know you're ready to move on.

[The Prowling Cat]

I'm with Song. I coached 9-10 year old rec and our first practice was tennis ball pop ups. Not only did it get the fear out of the less confident. I believe it evened the playing field and taught to squeeze the ball. The cocky players on the first throw would be like this is easy and get under the ball. Then they'd not squeeze the glove properly and the ball would bounce out. This gave a chance to teach the importance of squeezing the glove once the ball hit. I know myself that I always taught my son that if you can catch and hold a tennis ball a baseball is easy as it won't bounce like the tennis ball..

[Ursa Major]

I think at 8 years of age, the majority of the players shouldn't be pigeon holed into infield or outfield yet. The kids should play both. They have so many years to get into the specifics of a particular position.Absolutely! In my son's first year in baseball -- 8u coach-pitch -- the manager was so obsessed with winning that he had about five kids who never, ever saw the infield except to play catcher (and even then he instructed the pitcher's helper to run and cover home in the event there was an actual play there). After that, the league instituted a rule requiring everyone to get at least one inning in the infield before any kid could get a second inning there.

When you're making a game of catching flies, give extra points for balls that are got between the shoulders, to discourage kids from reaching to the side on every catch.

[songtitle]

the league instituted a rule requiring everyone to get at least one inning in the infield before any kid could get a second inning there.


I would not coach in this park. Some kids have no business being that close to a batter. It's too dangerous. I am talking about daisy pickers, etc.

[crazyhawk]

The only way to guarantee that kids will lose interest in baseball is by always putting them in the outfield. My son plays on a team where he always plays SS, 1b, 2nd, and pitcher and I completely disagree with this theory. We have about 5 guys who rotate to all the good positions. I think this is wrong. Although mine benefits from it...I think it is really a wrong thing to do with the other kids. Young kid baseball isn't as exciting as soccer in their eyes anyway because it is a methodical game and I feel that the coach is just pushing some of these kids right out of the game. Many of them are not all that good, but that isn't the point at this age. Getting them to love the game is the key. The other thing is that kids progress at different speeds. My older boy has really gotten his hand eye coordination starting to work this year and he has made major strides. If all he was able to do was play outfield last year, I don't know if he would have been as interested in getting better in the offseason.

[DukeK]

Game I used to play at this age - fly ball (or ground ball) Olympics.

Have 5 stations (1st base, 2nd base postion, 2nd base, SS position, 3rd base). All kids line up at 1st base single file. Throw each kid a fly ball (work on mechanics, drop step, etc...). If they catch it they move to 2nd station. Keep throwing, if they keep catching they move stations. First one to the 3rd base station wins. If 2 kids are tied have a sudden death playoff.

You can adjust difficulty base on skill level to even things out.

Do this with half the team at a time, it would take too long for the entire team (time between reps) Used to do this every practice, the kids loved it.

[Ursa Major]

I would not coach in this park. Some kids have no business being that close to a batter. It's too dangerous. I am talking about daisy pickers, etc.We're talking 7 -8 year olds hitting 'soft strike' balls -- I don't know of any kid getting a significant injury at that level. And 'daisy pickers' are surprisingly not a problem in the infield -- there's just too much happening too loudly and too quickly.

Safety of weaker players is a more legitimate issue at 9 -10 y/o ball, with real balls and bigger hitters, and that 'must play infield' rule does not apply. Even then, I've found you can put weak players at third base when your fastest pitcher is pitching to the bottom of the order, as it's not likely that anyone will get around on the ball .. but the kid at least gets the experience of warming up with and stationing himself alongside the other infielders.

[wilson68]

I have tried getting them to toss the ball up to themselves. Just to get the technique of catching the ball in the middle of the body. This way they can control the height and path of the ball. Softer balls are good, one good hard ball to the forehead and you may have a soccer player on your hands. And it just may take some time for the reaching reflex, and fear, to leave some kids. Keep at it and be patient.

[hitnpeas]

We're talking 7 -8 year olds hitting 'soft strike' balls -- I don't know of any kid getting a significant injury at that level. And 'daisy pickers' are surprisingly not a problem in the infield -- there's just too much happening too loudly and too quickly.

Safety of weaker players is a more legitimate issue at 9 -10 y/o ball, with real balls and bigger hitters, and that 'must play infield' rule does not apply. Even then, I've found you can put weak players at third base when your fastest pitcher is pitching to the bottom of the order, as it's not likely that anyone will get around on the ball .. but the kid at least gets the experience of warming up with and stationing himself alongside the other infielders.

I wish this were true, but a good number of kids in our league flat out mash the ball. I am very concerned about they safety factor when I make out our lineup. Unfortunately, some of our players will not see a game playing pitcher. I just won't take the chance.