provided by Coach John Ditore, The School of Baseball

The key to every infielder’s success is proper readiness.  We need to expect that every single pitch will end up coming our way off the bat.  The sooner we teach ourselves to become fully engaged in the game and know where the ball goes in every situation, the sooner we become mature baseball players.  Because of its intricacies, baseball requires our full attention at all times.  Okay, so now we are ready for the play.

As the pitcher begins his motion we need to put ourselves in an athletic position, ready to move in any direction.  We do this by slow creeping forward.  Since we do not know where the ball will go beforehand, this allows us to quickly adjust no matter where it ends up.  When the pitcher releases the ball we stop creeping forward, get on the balls of our feet, and extend BOTH hands in preparation for fielding the ball. 

Once we see that the hitter has hit a routine groundball towards us, we charge it as much as possible, meaning we attack the ball moving forward, and prepare to field the it at the same time we are stepping forward with our left foot.  This allows us to get ourselves prepared to throw the ball across the infield in the shortest amount of time.  After we receive the ball, we step across our body with our right foot and release the baseball towards first base.

This might sound like a lot of information to remember, but it really is not.  Once you have taken enough groundballs using the proper technique outlined above, it will get stuck in your head and you will be a much better infielder because of it!  Take a look at the corresponding video for a visual explanation and keep working hard!