halskinner
Banned
- May 7, 2008
- 2,649
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The 6 Station Hitting Drill.
One of the hitting drills that one of my teams did was a 6 station drill. Our head coach was also a Varsity coach at a local high school. The school had two softball fields with back-to-back backstops.
This drill required two pitching machines. One pitching machine and a backstop will work but that must be station number 1 and station number 6. Live pitchers at your discretion.
Station number 1. Coach behind the screen at the pitcher’s rubber. Ten cuts off the pitching machine.
Station number 2. Down the fence line would be a high school player sitting on a bucket with a bucket or two of plastic golf balls. She would be around 12 to 15 feet away, wearing safety goggles and would pitch the plastic golf balls to us overhand. Ten cuts.
Station number 3: Same thing exactly with the kid but this time she was pitching red kidney beans. Again, 10 cuts.
Station number 4: Same thing with the kid except this one was pitching us brown pinto beans. 10 cuts.
Station number 5: Same thing again with the kid on a bucket with safety glasses but this one was pitching us kernels of popcorn. 10 cuts.
Station number 6: Back to the back stop. 10 cuts off the pitching machine with softballs.
We also called this drill “the step down drill”. After starting with the softball and stepping down in size to the popcorn kernels, your focus on your target was increasingly difficult and, in fact intense. Then, going back to the softball you would think the pitching machine was spitting out Volkswagens they looked so big.
Once we had gone through all the stations we took over the buckets and we pitched to the kids, that and a pizza and a soda pop was their payment. They would get to their games and the coach would have two stations for them to warm up; Popcorn, Yellow plastic softballs. The coach said that the confidence the kids displayed was unbelievable and they pounded the apposing pitchers.
My team pounded the other pitchers too. I thought my head coach came up with these. Some years later I found out that MLB had been pitching popcorn kernels to their hitters forever. I’ll tell ya what, it works.
Please note;, if corn and beans start popping up on the softball diamonds next season… I don’t know ya!
I hope you find this useful.
Hal Skinner
One of the hitting drills that one of my teams did was a 6 station drill. Our head coach was also a Varsity coach at a local high school. The school had two softball fields with back-to-back backstops.
This drill required two pitching machines. One pitching machine and a backstop will work but that must be station number 1 and station number 6. Live pitchers at your discretion.
Station number 1. Coach behind the screen at the pitcher’s rubber. Ten cuts off the pitching machine.
Station number 2. Down the fence line would be a high school player sitting on a bucket with a bucket or two of plastic golf balls. She would be around 12 to 15 feet away, wearing safety goggles and would pitch the plastic golf balls to us overhand. Ten cuts.
Station number 3: Same thing exactly with the kid but this time she was pitching red kidney beans. Again, 10 cuts.
Station number 4: Same thing with the kid except this one was pitching us brown pinto beans. 10 cuts.
Station number 5: Same thing again with the kid on a bucket with safety glasses but this one was pitching us kernels of popcorn. 10 cuts.
Station number 6: Back to the back stop. 10 cuts off the pitching machine with softballs.
We also called this drill “the step down drill”. After starting with the softball and stepping down in size to the popcorn kernels, your focus on your target was increasingly difficult and, in fact intense. Then, going back to the softball you would think the pitching machine was spitting out Volkswagens they looked so big.
Once we had gone through all the stations we took over the buckets and we pitched to the kids, that and a pizza and a soda pop was their payment. They would get to their games and the coach would have two stations for them to warm up; Popcorn, Yellow plastic softballs. The coach said that the confidence the kids displayed was unbelievable and they pounded the apposing pitchers.
My team pounded the other pitchers too. I thought my head coach came up with these. Some years later I found out that MLB had been pitching popcorn kernels to their hitters forever. I’ll tell ya what, it works.
Please note;, if corn and beans start popping up on the softball diamonds next season… I don’t know ya!
I hope you find this useful.
Hal Skinner
