20 Ideas for Coaching Youth Baseball on Zoom: Juggling, batting stance contests; Hall of Fame voting; Casey at the Bat; pitching/hitting/fielding drills

In sunnier times, Coach Miller windmills in Noah Taggart to score for Steel City Select. (Picture by Carol Sherman)

We’re all trying to keep baseball alive in the time of coronavirus. As head coach of the Pittsburgh area Steel City Select 11u travel team, I remind my players to play catch (baseball’s fundamental skill) every day, doing whatever it takes, like those guys in Italy throwing from their balconies. But as I said on Mad Max’s excellent baseball podcast this week, coaching these days is basically weekly Zoom meetings. Here are 20 fun things we’ve figured out for keeping players engaged and into baseball:

1. Juggling: I’ve challenged each player to learn how to juggle three balls. It’s perfect for hand-eye coordination, something to practice by yourself and easy to show off on video. Every week, we check in on how progress is going. (And it’s a great skill for when you join a big-league bullpen.)
2. Batting stance contest: Channeling the genius of Batting Stance Guy, each player chooses a famously weird batting stance and imitates it. When we did this, we voted anonymously on best imitation. On our team, pitcher Michael Malady won with his impersonation of Craig Counsell’s wild over the head stance.
3. Hall-of-Fame Voting: I assigned each player the role of arguing for or against five players for the Hall of the Fame. Like a lawyer, they had to make their case, before the whole team voted. We chose to induct Barry Bonds and Adrian Beltre, and said no to Andrew McCutchen, Omar Vizquel and Roger Clemens.
4. Singing: Sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’. Divide lyrics into chunks and each player takes a turn. Make sure you “root root for [your team name]”.
5. Poetry: Again breaking the text into pieces, recite ‘Casey at the Bat’, Ernest Thayer’s classic 1888 poem about a star slugger striking out in a close game. This is a chance to educate players (and remind yourself) about baseball’s rich cultural and literary history. When we did this, my players loved the poem.
6. Baseball homework 1 (historical simulation): Using Out of the Park Baseball, I had the players choose two great historical teams, in this case the 1995 Braves and 2018 Red Sox, and we collectively managed a matchup on OOTP. The 95 Braves came from behind to beat the 18 Sox, 3–1. It’s a chance to talk about strategy. For example, we had a chance to take third on a fly out to right with 1 out, and got to explain why that’s not a good idea. (With 2 outs and a runner on third, you usually need a hit to score, so you’re not gaining much for the risk of getting thrown out.)
7. Baseball homework 2 (outlier season): Assign each player the task of finding a player on baseball-reference.com who had a singularly great season in a mediocre career, and have them explain why they think this happened. This forces them to think about performance and how it’s not constant.
8. Baseball homework 3 (freak play): Each player chooses their favorite freak eye-popping baseball play. When we did this, we looked at, among other things, Martin Maldonado hitting the cover off the ball, Manny Machado’s fake throw and spin move, and Derek Jerek’s famous flip.
9. Baseball homework 4 (great season): Using baseball-reference.com, each player must on their own find an outlier season and present it, like Pete Alexander’s 16 shutouts in 1916, Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA in 1968, Barry Bonds’ 73 homeruns in 2001.
10. Fielding 1 (grip): Baseball’s most crucial skill is playing catch, and the most import part of that is accurate throws, and key to that is the 4-seam grip. Show players how they can, while watching TV, practice putting ball into glove and grabbing it with a 4-seam grip. (The rest of these drills are for you to show players, and for them to perform later on their own.)
11. Fielding 2 (release): Lie on ground, and practice throwing ball straight in air with 4-seam grip and wrist snap. Repeat 20 times. For pitchers, repeat 10 times with change-up grip.
12. Fielding 3 (infield): Place three balls in a line and cross-over step to field balls one at a time. Repeat 10 times.
13. Fielding 4 (infield): Sit on knees (on a pillow), toss tennis ball against wall and practice catching groundball with hands out in front, staying below hop. Repeat 20 times.
14. Fielding 4 (outfield): Bounce a tennis ball on a hop off a wall and over your head and practice running back to catch it. Repeat 20 times.
15. Batting 1 (bat speed): 10 dry swings. 10 pushups. Repeat three times. For variety, swing with one hand at a time, and swing opposite-handed.
16. Batting 2 (balance): 3x10 dry swings standing on a narrow piece of wood (not more than 8 inches wide). Focus on balance while swinging hard. You can swing a towel, concentrating on the snap.
17. Batting 3(location): Stand in front of a mirror. Mentally divide strike zone into 9 boxes and swing hard to every box, visualizing contact. Repeat 3 times.
18. Batting 4 (hand-eye): Collect 20 bottle caps. Toss and hit them with a broomstick or PVC pipe.
19. Pitching 1 (hip explosion): Wind-up and set mechanics leading with hip into a wall. Hold position leaning against wall with hip. Load arm into launch spot. Feel connection between arm and lead hip. Repeat 10 times.
20. Pitching 2 (towel drill): Simulate pitching mechanics, from set and windup, with towel gripped in index and middle fingers. Follow through, feeling snap of wrist. Repeat 20 times.

John W. Miller is a Pittsburgh-based writer, filmmaker, and baseball coach. His feature film ‘Moundsville’ is coming to PBS in 2020