The Dugout: Midseason Check-In

This is the part that separates us from travel ball: playoffs, TOC, and All Stars are a once-a-year grind.

Locked rosters. Pitch counts. Fair play rules. Multi-week tournaments where the kid who's been in baseball for six years and the kid who's been in it for six months are on the same bus, chasing the same thing.

And here's the truth we can't avoid: to compete deep into these tournaments, everyone on the roster will have to make a play at some point.

Whether it’s at the plate or in the field, the baseball gods will always find a way to expose us.

Knowing that this is the inevitable truth about little league baseball, there is only one real question: do we have a plan for that?

Redefining a Successful Playoff Run

Wins and losses are going to happen. Some we'll earn, some we won't, and some will come down to a call or a hop that we can't control.

But if that's our only scoreboard, we're going to drive ourselves (and our families) into the ground.

So let's use a different metric:

There’s no greater feeling for a coach than to watch their team find a way to compete on their own. 

When we don’t have to say anything, they just know it’s time to push all the silliness aside for a moment and get to work…on their own.

The Evolution of a Coach

Since most of us are not professional coaches, it’s safe to say that most of our kids have been learning how to play baseball longer than we have coached. The difference is they're learning under our supervision, and we're learning on the fly; no one is standing behind us grading our reactions, our word choice, or our body language after a tough inning.

That means the only real coach we have is the one in the mirror. After every interaction with a player, parent, or umpire — every "coaching moment," every correction, every comment after a ground ball gets through — there's one question worth asking:

Did what I just say make that my player(s) more likely to go after the next play, or more likely to hesitate?

That's it. That's the whole self-review.

Because a head full of no, don't, can't, why'd you — even when every word is technically accurate — builds a hesitant player. And a hesitant player doesn't make the play in the 6th inning of an elimination game.

These tournaments are a grind. Back-to-backs or three in five days. Heat, umpires, a call that doesn't go our way, a parent in our ear, a kid who just struck out looking.

The stress is real and everyone is counting on us to stay in control of the situation.  Once the kids sense that we no longer have control of the situation, they tend to get emotional and stray away from the team. 

One of the quiet tells that we're losing the control is when we find ourselves jumping off the bucket, raising our voice, arguing calls, or muttering things that shouldn’t be spoken out loud, under our breath. 

It happens to all of us and it’s going to happen again. The goal is to get better at catching it a little sooner each time.

Because at the end of the day, it's just another game. Another rep for the player, the coach, and the parent.

The Little League mission has it right from the start: this game is a vehicle “to teach life lessons that build stronger individuals and communities.”

But this is not just for them, the players, it’s for US as well.  It’s an opportunity for US to become better coaches, citizens, and parents. 

Coming Down the Stretch

With all that said, getting ready for post season play is a grind.  There are many ways to approach it, but in the end:

It’s easy to play baseball when things are going well, but it’s even easier to play baseball when we are well prepared. 

We still have plenty of time to get ready for post season play, so let’s continue to go out there and push our entire roster to new heights!

Recommended for all divisions · Adaptable without a machine

The goal of this drill is simple: isolate the fielding motion for ground balls and let players read and field a clean bounce without the fear of a bad hop. It’s a confidence builder. It’s also a rep machine.

The Setup

Set up the Hack Attack without its legs, sitting on the ground, next to the mound. A coach sits on a bucket feeds the machine to third base so the ball bounces once or twice on the way to the fielder.

Players form a line. One by one, they take a ground ball and either throw to first or simply go through the transfer motion and get into a throwing position.

The machine allows for quick rotations and maximizes reps per player. Just as importantly, it lets players gain confidence in staying down and through the ball — because they know the hop is going to be clean.

The Progression

Work through these in order. Each one builds on the last.

1. Heel Roll. Player is in fielding position with the lead heel down and toe up off the ground. When the ball gets to the glove, the toe comes down and the ball is secured with both hands.  Ball is secured and transferred at the chest while player shuffles feet to get in position to throw the ball to 1^st base.

2. Flamingo. Lead foot is up off the ground, knee bent, like a flamingo. Once the ball gets to the player, the lead foot lands in the heel-down / toe-up position, and the ball is fielded.  Again, the ball is secured and transferred at the chest while the player shuffles their feet to get in position not throw the ball to 1^st base.

3. Prep Step + Shuffle. Players start with a prep step, then shuffle around a couple of cones set in front of them. Once the player clears the cones, the ball is released and the player reads the hop and makes the play.

No Machine? No Problem.

You can run the same progression with an underhand toss, or with a choked-up fungo (coach down on one knee). The machine makes it faster, but the teaching points — reading the hop, getting into a clean fielding position, staying through the ball — are what matter.