Call It - Infield Drill

As I indicated in my previous Swarming Blog Post we tried the Call It drill in practice today.

Before Practice
Before the practice the coaches discussed the "Call It Drill" in minor detail. Before every practice Coach Craig bring the kids to home plate to set expectations of the practice and what the first drill is. Today he explained the "Call It" Drill as follows:

1. When the ball is hit near you and you are the best person to field the ball. Shout out "I got it".
2. If you are next to the fielder that calls it first, run behind him to back him up.
3. The reason why we are practicing this drill is because we do not want more than one person fielding the ball.

Beginning of Practice
We only had six kids at the beginning of practice, so we lined them all up in the infield. 3 on the left side of the infield and 3 on the right side. I was assigned the task of hitting the balls to the infielders to practice the "Call It" drill. The other 3 coaches where in the field to help reinforce the drill. To make the drill go faster we emptied the ball bucket at home plate and set the bucket down at first so after the play the first baseman could just drop the ball in the bucket.

Call It Drill - Part I
As I started out the drill, the intention was to hit the ball randomly between the kids to put them in a situation where they would have to call it or back up the play. After I hit a couple of ground balls between the kids and the coaches were reinforcing the need to yell "I got it" I could see this was too confusing to the kids. They needed more conditioning before they could decide whether to call it and field the ball or back up the play. Meanwhile 2 other kids had showed up and got on the field. Now we were way too crowded.

Call It Drill - Part II
At the point in which we had 8 players in the infield and the kids were not taking to the drill well. I stopped hitting the balls and asked Coach Craig to make 4 positions and have 2 kids at each position and rotate them in. This time I was going to hit directly at each position just to get them used to saying, "I got it". So I started with 3B and worked around the infield until I got to 1B. I also pointed my bat and told the player I was hitting it to them. After a quick round through the infield a few kids where saying "I got it", while others were whispering and still others not saying it at all.

Call It Drill - Part III
I stopped the drill and told the kids I couldn't hear them call it and I wasn't seeing any of the near by players backing up the play. I said this in a very load voice so everyone on the field could hear me including the parents. This time I pointed at the third baseman and said, "It's coming to you". While cupping my ear to indicate I wanted him to reply, I then asked, "What are you going to say?". Luckily I had one of more vocal players on 3B at the time. He yelled, "I got it". I then pointed my bat at the shortstop and asked what are you going to do? We got silence. One of our assistant coaches illustrated the motions of backing up the play to our shortstop and once he was finished I pointed the third baseman and asked him again what he was going to say. He yelled, "I got it" again. I think the other kids grasped this as something they needed to pay attention to. I then hit the ball to the 3rd baseman and he yelled out "I got it" and made a throw to 1B. The shortstop did not run over to back up the play but at least we got it half right.

I then pointed over to the shortstop and told him the ball was coming. I asked him what he was going to say and I got a weak response. I then told him I can't hear you while cupping my ear and finally he yelled, "I got it". I then asked the 3rd baseman what he was going to do and got a blank stare. The assistant coach demoed the backup motion again. When we finally got through the first round there were 2 of the 4 kids that yelled "I got it" and none of them that had backed up the play. After going through approximately 15 rounds of this, each round got better than the previous one and we had all of the kids yelling "I got it". Most of the kids were backing up the play or at least making an attempt at it as well.

Call It Drill - Conclusion
If I had this practice to do all over again, I would have started the kids off in the 4 positions and had 2 coaches hitting balls. One to the left side of the field and one at the right side. I would have hit the ball right at the plays letting them know it was coming to them right from the get go and kept doing it until each kid was consistently calling "I got it" and backing up the play. I would have also sacrificed the throw to first since the field is now broken up in 2 groups. Throwing to first could be it's own separate drill.

The reason why I think 2 coaches hitting would be more effective is because I noticed some of the kids playing in the dirt while we were instructing the fielders. Obviously you need 4 coaches to effectively pull this drill off since 2 coachs would hit and 2 would instruct the infielder. Fortunately we have 4.

Repetition is the key. I am finding that the kids attention span is short and if they are not involved in the immediate action they tend to loose focus. So when doing drills think about how to maximize the repetitions the kids will get.

Batting Practice & Base Running
After we finished the Call It drill, we kept the kids in their positions and brought one kid in to hit and one kid in to swing a bat in the on deck circle. All the other kids were to stay in the field to practice the Call It drill in live situations and would rotate in to hit. Since this league allows you to pitch to the kids and then use the tee if they miss 3 in a row we practice that way. Coach Craig had to come in and relieve me as I was a bit wild in practice. Having a consistent pitch is important at this stage since you are trying to get the kids comfortable making contact. Once a kid made contact they were instructed to run to 1st and stay there. When the next batter got a hit the runner on first would advance. By doing this we were able to get batting practice and a little base running practice in.
My only wish is that we had more coaches. I know, we already have 4. From my point of view the more coaches you have, the more you can have kids working on drills.

Next Game
My hope is that we will have effectively reduced the swarm effect with the drill we did today. We will see in the game, but will reinforce this concept verbally right before the kids take the field.

Next Practice
We will decide what drills we do next practice but I guarantee it will focused around repetition. We will know more after the game.