Practice Ideas for Any Facility
Wright State University is in Dayton, Ohio. We deal with poor weather the majority of the winter. This isn’t new to me, in fact, it has sparked a lot of creativity as it has with a large number of cold weather high school or college coaches. We have had to deal with being indoors at every single coaching stop I have made in my career.
One of the most common questions I am asked is, “how do you apply the system when you don’t have a “Division I setup?” The only state of the art indoor facility I have been fortunate to use was at the University of Toledo. At Toledo they gave us 6am access to the indoor turf football field. This massive facility had wall to wall turf, a track, and drop down cages. We could use this to simulate any setup we desired to create base stealers.
Outside of that one year I have had to be creative. Here are some practice settings I have used to improve base stealers:
dusty gym floors
outdoor turf football fields
outdoor dirt baseball fields
outdoor turf baseball fields
concrete sidewalks
parking lots
turf batting cages
hallways and common areas
Some of these “limitations” have sparked drills that allowed our players improve. I look back at each setup and could have made excuses to why we need a better facility.
Here are some things I have learned. First, you have to work on base stealing everyday. It is unrealistic to think you will be able to have the perfect setup, unless you are coaching at a big time D1 school. You have to have options.
Here is what I ask:
Are we in a sliding friendly environment?
If yes, then work on returns a lot. You cannot do this enough.
If no, then can you make it a sliding friendly environment? We use sleeves, batting gloves, or socks to cover our hands/arms to make gym floors pain free.
If you cannot slide on the surface (concrete, astro turf, black top) then focus on leadoffs and jumps. If this is your only surface all off season then it is important to mix in the initial movements of the return. We cannot ignore returning.
These “limited environments” have the advantage of forcing us to coach movements. It’s hard to get players to relax in the game setting, but a setting where they know they wont get picked off allows them to improve at a faster rate.
Gym Floor Ideas:
We start with our leadoffs and returns. They do this on their own and focus on technique. They all have socks covering their arms making the drills 100% pain free.
We then will work on jumps and returns vs. pitchers.
This is also a good time to use video breakdown if you have a computer near by.
Our 2012 team was one of the best base stealing teams and they were created on a gym floor.
Concrete Floor Ideas:
We cannot put socks over their arms and expect them to enjoy flopping on concrete. This puts us in a situation where we work on their lateral shuffle.
We often do our card drills or partner races to force discipline of knowing a good jump and holding when timing is off.
I worked with a team awhile back in a carpeted hallway. In 30 minutes we had 70% of the team understanding a good jump and getting a secondary when the jump wasn’t there. This is a big deal. If we weren’t forced to be in this “limited environment” it would be tempting to move on. We need to make habits and this is a great time.
Dirt On Field Ideas:
During my time at UD we did most of our on field work on dirt. Again, make it pain free. We encouraged our players to wear old sweatshirts or socks on their arms because we slid every day. We also utilized all the bases instead of first base alone. This allowed the entire team to get multiple reps.
Turf Field Ideas:
I am spoiled to be at WSU and have access to a turf field. This means that whenever the weather is decent we can use any of the field to work on running or sliding. My favorite advantage of turf is using the deep first base area. This allows players to get live reps without being on the bag.
Hallway Ideas:
I love our race drills and verbal drills. This puts our players in a competitive environment but also allows us to get to that panic feeling. If you want to get your players better at reacting to pickoffs they need to feel that feeling they have in a game. Even if you cannot return you can get players to race against each other on your cue.
I would actually prefer a hallway setting to introduce different ideas to runners. For me, this is like taking dry swings for a hitter. This allows players to get the technique perfect before moving on.
No Practice Space Ideas:
If all else fails I keep my computer with me. I always have examples of different base stealing situations on video. This is similar to how I have hitting and infield video examples. Sometimes these video sessions allow a player to connect the dots in what he is practicing every day.
I hope some of these examples help players and coaches practice in what seem to be tough situations. Sometimes thinking outside of the box has forced me to come up with my favorite drills. It will do the same for you. We work on base stealing almost every single day. To do this you have to get creative at times.
Be sure to share and to check out the member’s only site for a lot more information about base stealing.