Yesterday marked the end of our spring instructional baseball season. If you know me, you know I love the game of baseball. So I jumped at the chance to coach my son’s youth baseball team. Baseball is a beautiful and challenging sport, and aside from my early childhood, it’s been a constant presence in my life.

Despite having a good amount of coaching experience in the past, this was my first full season coaching a team. For several years I coached for Brian Rose at his summer clinics, and I also coached a season of softball for my God child’s team. To the delight of my friend Felix, I’ve even coached a season of Fall soccer.

A Few Notes About Coaching 5-7 Year Olds

The 5-7 year old age group can be tough. REALLY tough. They’re full of energy, and working with them can be both challenging and incredibly fun.

Intensity aside, the skill gap can also be huge. There will be kids that can catch fly balls, and others that shy away as soon as they see the ball come out of the bucket. It’s a constant process to find the balance between too easy and too hard, too fast and too slow.

The number one recommendation I have is to show up with a plan. If you show up to practice without a rough outline in mind, you’ll be so busy thinking about what to do next that you’ll have less focus to give to the kids.

Alright, let’s get on with my end of season press conference.

My Youth Baseball Coaching Philosophy

When I thought about what mattered most this season, I kept coming back to two things.

Have Fun

The most important thing to remember when coaching kids is to make sure they have fun. If you’re too tough on them or only practice fundamental drills, you’re going to lose them. The primary goal is to help them develop a love for the game of baseball. If they are not looking forward to heading to the field, then it’s time to shake things up.

Recent studies have shown that 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13. The number one reason in a 2016 poll was that “it’s just not fun anymore.” Add in a lot of standing around, and that makes baseball a prime target for losing interest. But there’s so much more to baseball than standing in the grass and not getting the ball hit to you. Keeping this in mind helped me shape practices that were more engaging and less rigid. Be creative!

One fun incentive I used was handing out packs of baseball cards every few practices. After handing them out, my one condition is that they pick their favorite card and bring it to the next practice to tell me about it. It shows them that baseball can be fun even outside the lines, and sparks an interest in learning more about the game.

I was told that card collecting is now an interest for at least 3 of the kids on the team, so I’m counting this as a success!

Keep it Simple

Their attention spans are short. Some days it’s exceptionally short. It’s hard to resist, but try not to overload them with tips. Pick the most important thing they need to work on during each drill and try to focus only on that. And try not to teach for more than a minute at a time.

Don’t over complicate things and speak their language. Instead of “don’t step towards third” or “don’t step out of the box when you swing,” try “there’s a little mouse in front of your foot you need to step over.”

And if you’re a parent, try to resist throwing tips out there from the bleachers. Let the coaches pitch. They’ll hear (sometimes conflicting) instructions from multiple directions and will just get overwhelmed.

The 12 Week Coach Pitch Program

Instructional leagues are also known as “coach pitch.” I am happy to report that I made it through the entire season without any HBP, only one pair of knuckles crushed swinging at an inside pitch.

This may not sound like a big deal but I had to promise to buy one kid any toy he wanted if I hit him to help overcome the urge to step out of the batter’s box.

One of my main resources throughout the year was the Little League coach pitch program. The program has detailed schedules for each practice. I didn’t follow the plans to a T, but there were a good number of drills and concepts that I used. It was most helpful to keep sight of the fundamentals you should be teaching.

Proper 4-seam grip, fielding ground balls out in front, and running through first base are just a few. It’s a great program!

Internet Coaches

There are a ton of what I like to call “Internet coaches.” People involved with coaching youth baseball that share their drills, techniques, and mindset through social media. To improve my own approach, I turned to some of these creative coaches that share their techniques online. Here are a few that resonated with me and I kept returning to.

Coach Ballgame

James Lowe (a.k.a. Coach Ballgame) is the Youth Ambassador for Major League Baseball’s Play Ball program. His Instagram account was recommended to me by a good friend, and I spent at least 2 hours going through his videos that night. His mission is one that strongly resonates with me.

The Coach Ballgame Mission is clear: to make children fall in love with baseball and the invaluable life lessons it imparts, and empower youth coaches to do the same with their own teams.

His videos cover a wide range of topics Everything from simple hitting tips to conquering the fear of getting hit and how to best support your kid as a parent to how to coach your own kids. One thing I admire is how he has the attention of every kid, even when there’s dozens.

I highly recommend checking out his videos, especially if you’re a parent.

Duke Baxter

Another coach I found myself watching over and over was Malcolm Baxter (Duke). He runs Zoned Sports Academy in New Jersey and created Dominate the Diamond with another coach. I can’t remember how I came across his profile, but pretty sure it was my algorithm serving me up nothing but coaching youth baseball videos for a few weeks at the beginning of the season.

My son is only 5. When the season started, he was really struggling with not getting all of my attention. Understanding that I was “Coach” and not “Dad” when we were between the lines was really hard. I came across a variation of this video on Instagram one day and this trick helped immensely.

I had a talk with my son that when my hat was on, I was coach. I had to help everyone on the team do the drills to get better, make sure everyone was safe, etc.. But even though he was sharing me with his team mates, I would always be his dad. I told him that when my hat came off and was on the dashboard, I was back to being his dad and 100% of my attention his.

After the second or third practice with this rule in place, I forgot to take my hat off and he said “you forgot something, you didn’t take off your hat!” When I did, he was all smiles because I was out of coach mode and back to being his dad.

Listen to the Pros

One thing I highly recommend, even if you’re not coaching youth baseball, is to fire up MLB Network. Especially when they have current and former major league players on. Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, Jim Thome, Sean Casey, Harold Reynolds. All are there giving insight from their playing days.

Baseball can be infinitely complicated. But one observation I’ve had as a constant student of the game is that the most elite players have an uncanny unique ability to simplify.

My favorite segments are the ones where they head over to the field in Studio 42 for a current or former player to break down a concept. One such segment that has stuck with me since first seeing it back in 2011 featured future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols. He talked about how he keeps his hands inside the ball to ensure he can reach each pitch with a productive swing path.

Controlling your hands is one of the most important parts of hitting. And he was able to distill it down to one tip: throw the knob at the ball. With 5-7 year olds, you see all kinds of different swing paths. Wood chopping, golfing, fishing, swinging around the plate. This tip helped me teach the majority of the kids on my team what a good swing path feels like.

Some Drills

Along the way, I picked up several drills that worked especially well for our group. Here are a few standouts.

High Five Catch Drill

This is one I picked up from Coach Ballgame. He uses squishy balls, but I picked up a bag of tennis balls.

1. Teach them that catching the ball is just like giving a high five.
2. Toss it up and high five the ball to catch it.
3. Then have them lay on their backs and repeat the drill, tossing the ball straight up and catching with one hand.

This develops confidence, helps the kids develop hand-eye coordination, and improves their ability to catch the ball. The first time attempting this drill, everyone was throwing the ball too high and too far. But by the third practice, most kids were showing noticeable improvement.

Swat The Mosquito

I’m not sure where I got the inspiration for this one. I was looking for a way to conquer their fear of the ball in the air. Only one older kid on the team showed that they were confident enough to get under the ball. This one makes use of those tennis balls again.

Tell them that their glove is a giant fly swatter and the tennis ball is a huge mosquito. Their job is to stand under the ball when you toss it over them, wait until the very last second, and then swat the ball away as if it were a mosquito. Try to toss the ball directly over them as best you can to emulate a low fly ball. After a while you can mix it up and tell them to get under the ball making them move side to side.

This works on their hand-eye coordination and teaches them that the ball will not hit them if they don’t let it. Their glove is there to protect them from the ball. If they use it, they have nothing to worry about.

Defend the Castle

I picked this one up from Coach Duke and the kids loved it. You take two buckets and put them about 10 feet apart. Tell the kids that the buckets are their castle and they can’t let anything get past them. Roll them a bunch of different ground balls and see how well they do.

I mixed this up a bit in two ways:

• Instead of one person at a time, I made two lines (one at shortstop and one at second base)
• Instead of buckets, the outfield grass was the castle. Don’t let the ball make it to the grass.

Each “round” would be anywhere from 5-10 balls. After that, the next two kids stepped up and repeat. You could even spread them out and have them all defend at the same time.

Have them focus on shuffling in front of the ball, fielding out in front, and staying in an athletic position.

Self Pass

I later found a similar variation of this called Selfies from MOJO, but I came up with this one on my own.

Give each kid a ball. At their own pace, have them take the ball out, and practice grabbing the ball with a 4-seam grip before throwing it into their own glove. Coaches walk around doing the drill themselves and giving tips. Go up to a kid and tell them to pause showing you their grip. After a while, mix up the pace by telling them faster or slower. See how fast they can go.

After about 5-10 minutes, make a circle and start a contest: drop the ball and you’re eliminated. When there’s 3-4 kids left, invite everyone back in for a respawn. Eventually, play it out till only one remains.

This drill is a fun way to work on grabbing the ball with the proper grip, throwing the ball in a controlled way, and general hand-eye coordination.

Hat Drill

For the hat drill, players take their hat off, turn it upside down, and put the brim in their mouth. Because it blocks their vision of the ground close to their body, they are forced to extend their arms and glove out to field the ball in front.

This drill was fun, but I think it would be better better suited for an older age group. A few kids were too small to see over their hats. I had to fold it for it to work. 2-3 kids were also missing their hat that day. Convenient!

Other Drills

I found a lot of ideas for good drills from mojo.sport. Here are a few others that the kids enjoyed

Summary

Coaching youth baseball can be a lot of work. But it’s also deeply rewarding. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that fun and structure need to work together. Putting in the work to plan engaging drills that reinforce fundamentals will set you and your players up for long-term success.

Watching a player make their first catch or seeing their confidence grow can make it all worth it. If you’re even thinking about volunteering, do it. When you see the impact you can have, it’s worth every minute.