Tball Helpful Hints
This page is designed to provide to new LLLL Tball coaches helpful hints for practices and games.
Practices
- Make it fun — keep practices fun by incorporating games and competition into the drills
- Limit practices to 1 hour (even if practices are going well and all players are actively involved it’s better to end the practice on a high note than to push the players too long)
- Involve parents — encourage parents to participate in practices and build your practice plan with parental involvement in mind
- Take regular water breaks — in addition to keeping players hydrated use water breaks to re-focus players
- Keep safety in mind — if a player has a bat in his/her hand he/she should have a helmet on his/her head
Games
- Plan games for two innings of a continuous batting order
- Bring multiple copies of the player lineup to share with the bench and field coaches
Lineup
- Equitably rotate players every inning through the positions that are involved in the majority of the plays (P, C, 1B)
- Track player positions each game
Alternatives to Keep Players Engaged
- Rotate players amongst the less active positions after every third batter
- Right Side Rotation: 2B –> CF, CF –> RF, RF –> 2B
- Left Side Rotation: SS –> 3B, 3B –> LF, LF –> SS
- Position right fielder next to the 1B line and have him/her back up all throws to 1B
Batting Order
- Use the same sequence of players for every game incrementing down the list each game
- Seat players on the bench according to the batting order
- Ask parent/coach to be a bench coach to keep players in order and to get them ready for their at-bats