Understanding how to field a ground ball is entirely different
than teaching infielders how to do it. To teach the actions of
proper ground-ball technique, you need to use a structured plan
over several practices—and you must have plenty of patience.
Begin by using slow rollers from the hand (no batted balls), and
focus your instruction on footwork. Over time, break down the
fundamental steps, giving the athletes time to understand and
execute the various movements before you increase the pace and
ultimately hit ground balls. Note that there is a time for
teaching and a time for repetitions. In this case, this means
that you may not hit ground balls off the bat when you are
working on instruction. However, kids also need to field ground
balls, even if their technique isn’t perfect. They need the
practice, and they need to learn about long hops, short hops,
different spins, and so on. This helps ensure that the kids are
having fun (all work and no play makes a grumpy ballplayer), and
it enables them to gain in