Baseball Skills

Top college baseball coaches offer drills for players at all levels. Focuses on hitting, baserunning, fielding, pitching, and catching.

There's no better feeling for a baseball player than crushing a ball over the outfield fence for a homerun, or blowing a fastball by the batter for a strikeout. Would your readers like to hit like a pro and pitch like an all-star? Do they want to be a slick-fielding shortstop? From the basics of pitching to more advanced tips that will give readers a winning swing, this book has many important baseball skills, including fun tips and tricks from the pros.

Numerous coaching books cover the bases on the skills and drills of baseball. But very few hit on the tactical skills of the game: the situational decisions players and coaches make that often determine the outcome of games. That's where Coaching Baseball Technical and Tactical Skills stands out in the lineup of baseball titles available today. Written by the American Sport Education Program (ASEP) in conjunction with Tom O'Connell, a 30-year veteran coach and 2004 American Baseball Coaches Association Coach of the Year, Coaching Baseball Technical and Tactical Skills prepares you to be a better teacher and tactician of the game. Technical skills—such as hitting, throwing, and fielding—are examined in depth, as well as the tactical skills—such as hit-and-run, double-steal, and double-play defenses—that so many other books pitch around. Nearly 180 photos and illustrations bring the basic to intermediate technical skills to life, while sample season and practice plans help you in your preparation. With Coaching Baseball Technical and Tactical Skills, you have a resource you can rely on to take you down the base paths to coaching success. Endorsed by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), the book serves as a companion resource for the Coaching Baseball Technical and Tactical Skills online course, which, along with Coaching Principles, Sport First Aid, and CPR certification, make up the curriculum for ASEP's Bronze Level coaching certification program. Click here for an updated version of the Pitcher Basics section, pages 94-101.

Written for 8-12 year olds, this book covers basic rules plus and strategies to make you a better player.

Congratulations on your commitment to coach youth baseball. If you’re new to coaching, you’ll find Coaching Youth Baseball invaluable in making your first season a success. If you have previous coaching experience, you’re sure to discover tips and strategies that will help you improve on last year. Coaching Youth Baseball will help you manage your team with confidence. This age-specific and field-tested coaching guide will prepare you to handle your responsibilities and establish proper priorities as a coach; communicate with players, officials, other coaches, and parents; teach baseball skills and strategies using a combination of more than 30 drills and 40 coaching tips; minimize the risk of injury, establish a safe playing environment, and administer basic first aid; plan and conduct efficient practices; manage your team on game day; and keep it all fun. Written for coaches of players ages 18 and under, this book is a valuable component of the Coaching Youth Baseball the Babe Ruth League Way online course, the official certification course of Babe Ruth League, the premier amateur baseball program in the world. With this book, you will create and nurture an athlete-centered environment that promotes player development, enjoyment, motivation, safety, and sportsmanship—an environment that inspires players to perform at their best and come out for the team year after year.

As a coach, it is often cause for concern to see your athletes performing skills well in practice but struggling in the game. Coaching Football Technical and Tactical Skills focuses on the situational decisions players and coaches make that often determine the outcome of games. Written by the American Sport Education Program (ASEP) in conjunction with Rob Ash, the head football coach at Drake University, this book allows players to gain valuable gamelike playing experience in practice by putting them in key tactical situations like the scramble, man-to-man and zone pass coverage, and onside kick. Each skill is clearly described, and nearly 150 photos are used to further help you understand and implement the techniques in specific situations. Included are quick tips on how to detect and correct errors, cues athletes need to be aware of in various tactical situations, and key information your athletes need to know to make the appropriate decisions on the field. Skills are cross-referenced to show how they relate to each other and to enable you to plan practice situations quickly. Eight detailed practice plans incorporating gamelike situations and a season plan are included to help you get the most out of each practice. Endorsed by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), Coaching Football Technical and Tactical Skills serves as a companion resource for ASEP's Coaching Football Technical and Tactical Skills online course, which, along with Coaching Principles and Sport First Aid courses and CPR certification, makes up the curriculum for ASEP's Bronze Level coaching certification program. Numerous state high school associations, colleges and universities, national sport organizations, and national governing bodies of Olympic sports use the Bronze Level in whole or in part to qualify coaches. The Bronze Level prepares coaches for all aspects of coaching and is a recognized and respected credential for all who earn it.

The industry's longest-running publication for baseball analysts and fantasy leaguers, Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster, published annually since 1986, is the first book to approach prognostication by breaking performance down into its component parts. Rather than predicting batting average, for instance, this resource looks at the elements of skill that make up any given batter's ability to distinguish between balls and strikes, his propensity to make contact with the ball, and what happens when he makes contact—reverse engineering those skills back into batting average. The result is an unparalleled forecast of baseball abilities and trends for the upcoming season and beyond.

In this book, authors H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl present their practical and proven strategy for developing the mental skills needed to achieve peack performance at every level of the game.