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Catch With One Glove, Not Two Hands

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Watch a MLB game this week (hopefully, watch more than one). Count how many times someone catches a baseball with “two hands”.

Every routine ground ball might have a “two hand” look – glove on the bottom and throwing hand covering on top. More on this later.

Every other ball will be caught the same way - with one glove. You won’t see a first baseman stretch both hands outward towards a throw to first – he will stretch his glove toward the ball to make the catch. You won’t see a catcher grabbing a curveball with two hands – you’ll see them snagging the ball deftly with the catcher’s mitt.

The following coaching mistake is one I’ve made myself over the years. In an attempt to make it right, I’ve probably confused a bunch of youth players along the way.

“Use two hands, but keep the throwing hand out of the way. Just cover the glove.”

“No, wait till you catch it with your glove, then, quickly cover up!”

“No, I know I said two hands, but don’t do it like that.”

“No, don’t reach with both hands, just reach out with your glove. Then…cover up?”

“Well, sometimes, you can’t use two hands, but when you can, try to.”

Thinking back on it, I was hopelessly trying to shoehorn some “old fundamentals” into a reasonable method for teaching fielding, and I was making a total mess of it.

“Two Hands” Mistakes:

The following mistakes happen all of the time, all the way through high school ball (and sometimes the rare grown up player of college/pro rank).

1) Throwing hand behind the glove.

This is most common no-no you see when a new/young player is told to catch with two hands. If you think about it, it makes sense. Having tried a glove a few times, they’ve no doubt realized the ball fits into the pocket perfectly well on its own. The glove stays on easily once the ball is inside of it. What could the second hand possibly be for? An inexperienced player puts the throwing hand behind the pocket mostly because it’s the closest place they can put it to the other hand, although it could be because they have no idea how else they are supposed to catch with two hands while wearing a glove.

2) Football catch instead of using the glove.

A variation of the above is when a player will then face the pocket of the mitt to the side of an oncoming baseball.  Here we have another error that makes some sense – how else are you supposed to catch with two hands while wearing a glove? Move the glove halfway out of the way. Unfortunately, this defeats the purpose of the glove and makes catching a baseball feel a whole lot more dangerous.

3) Throwing hand in the glove.

This is the solution to the vexing instruction that I’ve personally given a player or two along the way – “close the glove with the throwing hand once you’ve caught the ball in the glove”. The player is faced with a dilemma — how do I time up the oncoming baseball with my throwing hand’s movement to close the glove? The ball travels too fast. Some early-closing occurs, and sometimes the throwing hand sneaks into the glove before the ball does. Both situations result in dropped throws, and some situations result in sore throwing hands.

Throwing Hand Transition & “Two Hands”

So you might be thinking, “I’ve seen players catch a fly-ball with the throwing hand covering up” or “I see infielders catch ground balls and throws with two hands in every game!”

If you are thinking this, you are perfectly correct. However, it’s important to realize why you see this. It has nothing to do with the act of catching the baseball. No outfielder is expecting the ball to come rocketing out of their glove when they catch a fly-ball. No infielder is trying to catch a thrown or batted baseball with the throwing hand (save the attempted ‘bare hand’ pickup attempt).

The reason we see a “two hands” look to the catches described above is because players are trying to transition the catch to their throwing hand as quickly as possible. A great infielder catches the ground ball, and simultaneously funnels it up into the throwing hand in one smooth motion. A prepared outfielder gets under the ball and attempts to do the same in an effort to release a throw back into the infield as quickly as possible.

Transition is the only reason the throwing hand is anywhere near the glove. Anytime a catch does not require a subsequent throw, you will not see players doing this.

It’s also important to realize that these quick transitions are, for the youth baseball player,  an advanced technique – not a fundamental. It’s much more important to catch the baseball – with the glove – than it is to worry about the fastest possible transition and throw. Having a quick transition to the throwing hand is only useful if a player’s footwork is in order, if they know where they are throwing the baseball, etc.

It’s perfectly normal and expected for advanced teenage players, high schoolers of any level, and those above to be able to complete these quick catch-to-throw transitions.

It is not, repeat, not because at any point the player is to be trying to catch the ball with two hands. Any player who cannot catch a ground ball, fly ball, thrown ball or batted ball with his or her glove is much, much better off working on that basic skill until it is fully mastered. Encouraging a player without that basic skill to have the throwing hand around or in the way of the glove is not helping them at all. 

Drills & Tips

There’s very few, if any, quality glove-control drill examples online. There’s some position-specific ones that are available to study, but I would encourage players all the way up to the varsity high school level to work on general glove control outside of position-specific drills. The better you are at using your glove, the better you are at catching the ball. This applies in all the typical situations (ground balls, fly balls, thrown balls, etc.), but especially shows itself in difficult situations where the ball makes unexpected moves, like on short-hops.

Some of the best general purpose drills for improving your player’s glove work are:

1) Pepper

Watch the video to see a basic example of how to play the game, but the basic premise is to have a group of fielders play softly batted balls (or bunted) at close range, improving a player’s reaction time and confidence with the glove, without causing undue risk of injury. I wouldn’t entirely recommend doing exactly as the team in the video does – I’d play at a slightly lower velocity, especially with younger players.

2) Short Hop Drill

This focuses mainly on picking ground balls and short hops, but can be modified to work on all types of catches. Simply pair two players about 10-20 feet apart, facing each other with feet wider than fielder’s stance. Then, simply toss each other one-hop throws or short-hop throws directly at the player, to the backhand leg, and towards the glove hand side, at random. The purpose of the drill is simple – catch/pick the baseball. For younger players, this drill can be replicated with throws in the air as well. There’s no special sauce to this one – simply get as many rapid reps in as you can, and do this throughout your baseball career.

3) Steering Wheel Drill

This is typically a drill just for catchers, but it can be done standing up instead of in the crouch and it serves as a great drill for young players learning how to catch the baseball. Set up like the short hop drill, except instead of two players, have one player ready to catch and the other person being the coach with at least 6-10 baseballs ready for throwing in rapid succession.

The coach will proceed to toss baseballs around the player, starting right at them, and then moving within arm’s reach in a clockwise fashion – out to the player’s left, then lower, then about knee height, then to the right, and so on.

The player will simply do two things: catch each baseball, and then immediately drop it from their glove and resume a catching position, ready for the next ball. Each ball should be thrown with only moderate pace and from a close enough distance as to ensure accurate throws. The player then works on the basics of glove positioning with each catch: fingers up for balls at them and above the chest, fingers to the right for balls extended to the right, fingers to the ground for balls below the thigh/waist, fingers to the left for balls to the left.

Final Thoughts 

There’s a legitimate reason “use two hands” has some history in the lineage of baseball teaching & fundamentals. There’s a significant difference between what your players will be using as gloves on the field, and what were considered gloves way back at the turn of the 20th century.

Your glove has finger holes – the old gloves usually did not.

Your glove is rawhide leather – the old gloves were a mishmash of materials.

Your glove had a pocket, ready-made to catch a baseball – the old gloves had none or one that wasn’t large enough to hold a ball.

Your glove (when broken in correctly) will catch a ball when one is placed it in every time, no effort required – the old gloves used to be nothing more than a pillow for your hand – one that allowed you to experience a softer blow from a firm baseball when you caught it with a technique we’d recognize today as the one employed to catch a football or basketball – two hands, placed around the object, clasping together.

Nothing about a modern baseball glove requires a second hand’s contribution to catch. It is not made to grasp the ball from the outside, and it’s certainly not prone to causing the ball to carom off your hand like a backboard. (Note: If your players are experiencing thrown balls bouncing out of their gloves when catching thrown baseballs, the gloves are not nearly broken in enough for use. Glove care is required in order to bring the mitt into working order)

Players who can’t catch do not struggle because they don’t use “two hands”. It is because they are not yet good with using one glove. Teach & encourage your players to get good with a glove. “Glove confidence” is a skill, and it’s one you can improve upon with the proper time and effort.

 

 



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