The purpose of this survey was to get a sense of how much time teams spend on practice skills, starting with how many games they have ion a week, how many practices, and the hours they spend a week on practice. Then we broke it down to the emphasis on specific skills, with rankings of never - seldom - often - always.
Generally, the ratio of practices to games per week is greater for older age teams, and their practice tend to run longer. There are teams, by the way, who practice or play every day and run over ten hours of practices a week - just as there are teams that play 3-4 times a week and seldom practice in season (we suspect they get much more practice in pre-season.)
We not only received a lot of entries to this Nose2Nose, but a lot of insightful comments. And we've noted a few concerns of our own. First, the charts...
Our conclusions...
What isn't obvious from above charts is that on many individual entries, there are teams that spend a lot of time on, say, bunting, but none on bunt coverage. Or vice versa. Question: If you feel the need to practice bunt coverage, then don't you think bunting is a legitimate offensive weapon and why aren't you working on it? Not to single out bunting. In fact there are no skills on the list that should not get some of your practice time. For instance, while WebBall is against the usual Live BP with one batter waiting for a good pitch while fielders stand around wasting valueable practice time, we do suggest ways to make even Live BP efffective. And, yes, nutrition is not a hot topic at baseball practice - but it is a component of conditioning, of pitcher recovery, of injury reduction, of mental alertness. So why not a little research into it and a couple of minutes on it during a water break.
We'll step off the soapbox now and let others have a turn...
Favorite parts of practice (and general comments)...
Game simulation. I like to split the squad into groups and hit live to simulate games.
- Bob Wilhelm
Conditioning Drills. We run fifteen to twenty minutes of stretching and plyometric exercises.
- Jay Gledhill
Soft-toss, intrasquad drills (13s vs. 14s, lefties vs. righties), & mini-teams, getting kids really into it. As they get more sweaty, tired, loud, the more I feel they are getting something out of it. when the 'atheletes' actually mix with the kids for whom this is just an activity, and exchange a smile, or an 'atta boy', I feel best. When they break down barriers as much as when they learn something, I feel I have done something.
- Len Boylan
Every practice is enjoyable, although seeing one player do something that stands out and then expresing it to team to let them know that every player counts.
- Smity
My favorite part about practice is fielding the balls hit to me.
- Henry
My favorite part of practice is when we do batting practice. However we don't bat off of live pitchers. Our coaches pitch at a extremely low speed.
- Twan [ A reminder to coaches that practice needs to be harder than games not easier. - Ed.]
We've been inside a gym until [mid-April]. This limits my ability to get the outfielders work. We also do not have a batting cage so most of the teams hitting drills have been from using soft toss and tee's. My favorite part of practice is when we can get outside and I am able to get the whole team involved in drills, but I'm also always looking for more drills to do indoors.
- Bill McClare
My practice schedule is before games start not during the season. Once the season starts I practice once or twice a week depending on how many games we have that week. I try to keep practices fun and I break off some of the kids who need more help in certain areas with an assistant coach or myself so that they can work on what there weakest at.
- Ken
Pre-Practice pep-talk and Strategy sessions. This is the only time during practice that the team is all together in one place. They hang on every word and even give their imput as to how they feel about previous game and upcoming games. It makes me feel good to see a kid raise his hand and ask (for example) "Coach, are we going to work on over the shoulder catches today? I don't what to drop another one of those. I felt that really hurt us last game." That was said last week by my 9 year old Center fielder. It lets me know what they feel we need to improve on as well as what I feel we need to improve on.
- D. Johns
I love all of it but would like to work Bullpen more often. I only have 11 kids. I would also like to work on the Pitcher pickoff and more BP with the kids pitching.
- Brian Sprouse
I almost always have a live intra-team scrimmage to get as close as possible to game situations. I maximize player competition (individual or in groups) to elevate interest.
- Dave Male
Seeing the kids solve problems that have held them back in their game, and the smile on their face when the confidence returns.
- Mike Lucky
My favorie part of practice is infield practice and base running. I feel if we can get outs on groundball and run the bases well, we will win. I try to work on hitting off the tee, but I have coaches who don't believe in that.
- Derrick
For hitting, I usually have 3 stations, soft toss, whiffle ball, & live BP going all at the same time. Pitching might also be going at the same time with 1 catcher and pitchers rotating. Favorite is working the infield with the outfield and running situations with live runners.
- Ron Allen
My favorite part of paractice is when the boys finally do something that they learned in practice in REAL GAME!
- Mark Malone [That's what it's all about. Thanks, Mark, and everyone else. We only had room for some of the many dozens of good comments received. - WebBall]
