Finding lost balls in the Outfield

by Gene Cunningham
(Tampa Bay, Florida )

Many times an outfielder will see the ball off the bat, get a great jump, take the right route & make a tough ball look easy. However, whether it's sun, lights or lack of focus Outfielders will sometimes "Lose a Ball" in flight.

When I was playing in college a drill I used to love helped with this scenario.

Our coach would simply hit full flight fungo's to us in centerfield. We would start laying face down on the grass... after the ball was in the air our teamates would yell "UP"! We would have to quickly get up & "Find the Ball".

The drill was a lot of fun as many times by the time we found the ball we had to really hustle to run it down. Confidence in the ability to do this drill made it easy when we could focus on seeing the ball off the bat!

Rick's comment: Terrific drill Gene! I have used a similar one, for reaction times in the infield. Kids love the rush of locating the ball.

Thank you for the submission. The more we share, the more we all benefit. It is a baseball tradition among coaches.