Catching on glove side

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Nov 29, 2009
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Any tips to get my daughter catching on her glove side? Currently, on glove side, she keeps her fingers down and elbow in her ribs. On the other side, her fingers are up and the glove is extended out and away from her body. I throw to her glove side to practice, and explain she needs to catch away from her body. Is it just that I’m dad and she’s not going to hear me? Thanks for the help.
One of the things I do with young ones to re-enforce the correct hand position to catch a ball it this.

Place her in front of a smooth wall far enough away from the wall so she can comfortably reach the wall while standing and squatting with her feet shoulder width apart. With her bare hand have her "wipe" the wall with the palm of her hand. Make sure she has her fingers spread apart. She can not lifter her hand off of the wall. Have her go from the ground to as high as she can reach and to the sides in all directions. Again, the key to the drill is she can not lift her hand from the wall as she moves her hand up/down/left/right it puts the palm in the correct position to catch a ball. Have her do it slowly. If you have her do it with her eyes closed she'll get a better "feel" for the correct hand position.

After that have her face you and softly toss tennis/wiffle balls at her bare-handed as suggested in a few other posts to let her gain confidence and familiarity with the correct hand position.
 
Last edited:
Jul 31, 2019
495
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Tennis balls are a great way to start, for sure. Start her hand in the middle with fingers slightly pointed to the pitcher. Have her rotate her hand like she is driving a car. Turn to the right, the thumb is down, turn to the left, the thumb is up. Work on soft hands catching between her fingers and thumb, not back in the palm.

How is her stance, proper stance (which comes with developed strength and flexibility), is a framing must. Control the body, control the frame. On the inside pitch, quietly allow your body to sway slightly left to get her shoulder/arm outside the pitch. Catch the ball and curl the fingers in to frame. This is all traditional framing. Some advanced catchers have added thumb down framing on inside pitches, but I would not start her there.
 

GIMNEPIWO

GIMNEPIWO
Dec 9, 2017
171
43
VA
Any tips to get my daughter catching on her glove side? Currently, on glove side, she keeps her fingers down and elbow in her ribs. On the other side, her fingers are up and the glove is extended out and away from her body. I throw to her glove side to practice, and explain she needs to catch away from her body. Is it just that I’m dad and she’s not going to hear me? Thanks for the help.

Are you sure she has the correct glove on the correct hand ? Not joking. Did you try to make a righty a lefty or vice versa ?

If you are sure, tennis balls and an oven mitt ... Make her stand in one spot (in a couple ball buckets if you have to) and toss the tennis balls to her glove side to where she has to extend a little to reach them initially ... After she starts to get it, (remove buckets) have a 3rd person stand behind her so that she has to receive the ball on her glove side and then turn glove side to throw to person number 3, then repeat back again to you ... Do this 10,000 times. It takes 10,000 times to get a good muscle memory and only 3 times to lose it.
 
Last edited:
Nov 18, 2015
1,585
113
That's one of the few videos of hers I haven't watched - almost all the rest are full of really good information, so I'm betting you'll find this one useful as well. I wish more YT videos were structured like hers - explain, walk through it, then show it in real time / full speed.
 

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