Practice fungo routine

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Apr 13, 2015
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Hey Coaches...what are some of your practice fungo routines you do with your infield and/ or outfield
 
Jul 29, 2013
6,782
113
North Carolina
Hey Coaches...what are some of your practice fungo routines you do with your infield and/ or outfield
Nothing beats live situational scenarios!

All the fielders in their positions, and any backups in their positions and ready to swap out quickly.
You're in the box, loudly call the the number of outs, how many runners are on base, then hit the ball where they ain't! Your catcher and 1B should loudly be directing any cuts.

Work the infield and outfield equally, but work on hitting gaps in the outfield and your outfielders angles. EVERYONE is talking and moving at 100%! Work on long throws and cuts from RF to 3B, make them focus on glove side cut catches, fractions of a second mean everything in cuts!

Focus on infield throws to home, hitting the catchers mitt in the optimum spot to make a quick, easy, safe tag. And so on and so on!
 
Last edited:
Jan 25, 2022
880
93
Nothing beats live situational scenarios!

All the fielders in their positions, and any backups in their positions and ready to swap out quickly.
You're in the box, loudly call the the number of outs, how many runners are on base, then hit the ball where they ain't! Your catcher and 1B should loudly be directing any cuts.

Work the infield and outfield equally, but work on hitting gaps in the outfield and your outfielders angles. EVERYONE is talking and moving at 100%! Work on long throws and cuts from RF to 3B, makes them focus on glove side cut catches, fractions of a second mean everything in cuts!

Focus on infield throws to home, hitting the catchers mitt in the optimum spot to make a quick, easy, safe tag. And so on and so on!

This is pretty standard for us. There's really no better way. I did have them do this once with music blasting from the P.A. and everyone wearing foam earplugs. It was a disaster for the first couple rounds through, then a couple of the girls took charge and started barking commands with hand signals, outfielders paid attention, cut (wo)men started waving their hands, runners paid attention, etc. No one was turning their back on the play for fear of taking a shot to the head. Looked like a well-oiled machine within a few minutes. It was hilarious listening to them scream at each other and making angry faces at me.
 
Mar 7, 2020
17
3
No disrespect intended but it is as simple as practicing what happens in games. Ready position. If the ball is hit your way field it and throw the runner out. Make sure to use a live runner. Do not hit the ball directly at a fielder. Make them move. Hit them hard grounders. If the ball gets through to the OF they play it, line drives, and pop ups (fair and foul), anything that happens in a game.

I could get technical when it comes to ready position, fielding, footwork, throwing and calling popups but that's up to the coach to evaluate.
 
Oct 26, 2019
1,375
113
Maximize reps and minimize people standing around. Live scenarios have their place, but if the ball isn’t hit to you you aren’t getting any reps.

I usually go with some form of this routine. Everyone touches the ball with minimal wait time. First base had an empty bucket to drop balls in.

Round 1
5-4-3, 6-3 (alternate between the two for the bucket)
Round 2
5-3, 6-4-3
Round 3
5-3 slow roller, 4-6-3, 3 unassisted

Lots of reps and no one is waiting their turn for more than a few seconds.
 
Oct 26, 2019
1,375
113
I have a different philosophy than a lot of coaches regarding practice time. I don’t go over “scenarios” much in practice. I focus almost entirely on what I would call “skill acquisition” and I try to let them “learn the game through the game”. At a younger age, I would rather they make a good throw to the wrong base than a bad throw to the right base.
 

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