judging fly balls to seadog and anyone else

John,

Obviously the most important thing any player can do for learning to judge a fly ball is practice, practice, and more practice. When I was 9 I was fortunate to have a teen age (thank you Butchy McNew) boy hit me tons of flyballs on the playground. I would do it just about every day during the summer.

In game situations I found the most important thing you can do is to position yourself correctly(I assume you are talking about the outfield). As a youngster playing on little league fields I felt that if the ball had any kind of loft on it and it stayed in the ball park then it should be caught.

Generally I like to play a little deeper on the hitter since it is far easier to come in on a fly ball. I know a lot of managers like to have the outfielders play in so as to catch the short fly, however I feel short flys are the infielders responsibility. The manager may feel that a ball hit over a short fielders head deserves to be a hit and they concede it. However, as I stated earlier most balls that stay in the ball park should be caught.

To position yourself correctly a couple things to keep in mind...

1.) Learn the hitting abilities of the opposing batters. Obviously if a batter appears not to be able to hit the ball then it would be safe to play in on them.

2.) Watch the pitch coming into the batter. You should be moving on every hit ball. If the ball is outside (to a right handed batter) then my first step would be to my left and in (since I prefer playing the batter deep) when the batter swings.

3.) The last thing you want to do is to turn the wrong way on a fly ball. This takes practice, knowing which way the wind is blowing, as well good positoning of yourself in the field. Also, coming in on the ball at the time of the catch reduces the probability of turning the wrong way. For example the shortstop on my adult team will break back very quickly on a short fly to the point that he goes back too far then comes in to catch it.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Al