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BigandUgly
06-01-2009, 09:03 AM
Hello everyone,

I'm new here and was hoping you could give me a little help. When I was young I had two older brothers and learned how to play by playing. I was a pretty decent ballplayer. When my son came along he learned by playing with me and his cousins. He's a pretty decent ballplayer as well. Neither one of us was ever "taught" the right way to do things. We've both watched major leaguers and try to look like them.

We recently moved to a new town and it was too late for him to try out for the school team. When we checked out the town rec league they said there were kids on a waiting list to play, but they didn't have enough coaches. I told them I would coach if it meant another group of kids could play.

I've never coached before...

My concern is the number of large kids (ages 12 and 13) that just don't throw right. They look awkward and don't throw far, hard or accurately. The team would improve tremendously if they could throw better and I'm afraid the are going to hurt themselves. It really does look painful, wrong foot forward, elbow low and close to the body.

I really thought kids at this level would be fundamentally sound and coaching would be relatively easy. What can I do to teach them to throw properly at this age? Is it too late?

baseballdad
06-01-2009, 09:53 AM
This site has a good section on drills and throwing that I have used successfully for my LL teams. http://www.qcbaseball.com/skills/pc_throwing1.aspx

DukeK
06-01-2009, 12:05 PM
It's never too late to learn.

Chris put a lot of time into his research here: http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/Baseball/Pitching/index.html

You can also search for some old pitching threads on this forum.

scorekeeper
06-01-2009, 12:15 PM
Do yourself a favor, and whatever throwing mechanics you decide to try to employ, make sure you force the players to use them in simple pre-game and pre-practice throwing warm-ups. If players can’t step right at a person they’re playing catch with, and make a throw that can be caught between the knees and the shoulders, every time, not just most of the time, there’s something wrong.

BigandUgly
06-02-2009, 07:49 AM
Thanks for all your help and the references you provided. It gives me a good start.

Last night I had everyone line up at third, field a ground ball and make a throw to first. Only 6 of 15 kids made the throw in he air and two of those were off target. Having the outfielders get the ball back to the infield is a real nightmare.

My hope is that a handful of the players improve enough to want to play again next year and make a contribiution to a team. Trying hard to stay positive.