Super Fun Baseball Drills for Young Players

Are you looking for great, fun drills for your Little Leaguers? If so, it’s important to consider what makes a drill great. The best drills are those that are, first and foremost, fun! It’s pretty much impossible to hold a child’s interest if the drill isn’t entertaining. Good drills also teach essential and important baseball skills, skills kids will need both in their Little League games and in their future sports endeavors. With those ideas in mind, here are some drills that fit the bill.

Target Practice

For this drill, you’ll need to raid the elementary school’s gym closet or hit up a local discount store.

Regardless of how you get them, you’ll need lots of baseballs, a few bats, and three different-colored jump ropes.

Arrange the jump ropes into circles in each bunting zone. Then, situate your players at home plate and pitch to them, calling out a jump rope color as you do. The player’s job is to then bunt the ball into the appropriately colored jump rope loop.

Kids will have fun with this drill and, at he same time, will learn to control and develop their bunting skills.

500

The “500” drill is an oldie but a goody. The reason it’s stuck around for so long is because it’s great at improving batting in young players.

To try it, call one player to be the batter, and scatter the rest of your players in the field. Then, pitch to the batter. Your other players will try to field the ball.

Players who catch balls before they reach the ground get 100 points, minus 50 points for a bounce. Grounders count too, but only for 25 points. The first player to reach 500 points (it’s best to have a scorekeeper to avoid squabbles) takes the next turn as batter. You can play until the kids start getting bored, or, ideally, until every player has had a turn as batter.

Relay Race

As proven by years of gym classes, kids love relay races! Since these types of races are still popular in gym classes all over the United States, your players should be familiar with the concept, making for easy set-up and explanation. Plus, a relay race drill is an excellent way to improve base running and ball handling skills.

You’ll want to separate your players into two teams. The first team lines up at first place while the second team lines up at second base. The job of the first player on each team is to carry a ball around the bases after being given a signal.

Once a player hits all the bases and makes it back to his team, he hands the ball to the next person in line, who repeats the action. Whichever team has all of its players make it around the bases first will win the game.

As you can see, it’s easy to have fun at Little League practice while still teaching valuable skills to your players. And, at the end of the day, those things- skill development and fun- are what it’s really all about!

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