Ongoing UF Softball Commentary

No clue.

 

Baseball does it too. They seem to purposely drop them though. They move their hands like they’re closing the glove and let the balls drop off their fingertips.

 

We used to make infielders take ground balls with a hand sized piece of plywood strapped to their hand.....great drill for hands

 

They did another barehanded drill too, but can’t remember what it was. I remember the one where they were pop ups and they dropped all of them. The other drill they were catching them, but don’t remember if they were being bounced in or tossed straight at them. Both these drills were with the outfielders. Pretty sure both drills were with the glove hand.

Don’t recall the infielders doing any fielding drills with no gloves, but I don’t go to every practice, and can’t even keep track of all the drills going on at once when I do make it.

 

The softball ladies caught them.

 

I used to do it all the time…even pepper at times. Just a guy thing back in the day…so I thought

 

Forces or is a coaching cue to keep your head behind your glove when catching the ball.

 

Is anyone streaming the exhibition game with UCF from Orlando or doing a game thread? The game is at 2 PM.

 

https://instagram.com/stories/gatorssb/3234445013013758779?igshid=MTF2NzBkZzI4bjdrbA==

 

For those of us who eschew social media, can you give a synopsis? Thanks

 

The photo above was the Instagram post.

 

Catching baseballs barehanded or softballs even though little different given size for a softball is bigger.

It is just about a few different concepts - improving eye/hand coordination, trying to catch the ball in a certain fashion where you are trying to get the ball out of the glove a fast as possible and indirectly you are trying to mitigate the fears of balls coming at you.

I think the first things I remember in tee ball and then little league is just basic concepts of trying to eliminate the fears of balls coming at you whether you are talking about fielding or hitting. Getting hit with a baseball is not a fun experience and if you play you will get hit at some point whether in the field or at bat.

And certain positions in the field you are getting to get hit the baseball more often than not like catchers or third base or first base.

Then on rare occassions there will be circumstances where bare handing a baseball will happen and you are trying through repetition just to get prepared for the possibility of something like happening in an actual game.

I know my dad would always hit ground balls at me at one million mph at first base during ground ball practices just getting me prepared for anything and everything that could happen in actual game when playing the infield. You screw around with barehanding the baseball with other drills because at some point those things will happen whether you like it or not.

Little league championship game up by one run with runners on the corners with two outs. The fastest guy on the opposing team is at bat who is a right handed batter and I'm playing first base. The guy is known to bunt a lot so I'm playing within the bag at first base. And he begins to show like he is bunting so I'm creeping in really closer to the batter. I'm might be 5-6 feet from the batter at this point. Something Pete Rose said in the 70s and it is true - the scarest moment any infielder playing 1st or 3rd base happens to me. It is probably the most dangerous play in baseball that could happen for any infielder. The batter who acting like he is bunting (slash hitting), all of sudden is taking his bat back and is now trying to take a full swing at the baseball now. So I'm staring down a batter 6 feet away from me who is about to take a full swing at the baseball. He takes a full swing at the ball and proceeds to hit the ball right down the first base line in the air line drive. I'm left handed so I have no reaction time to get a glove out in that particular direction and I just literally stick my left hand in the air to stop the line drive. Don't ask me how I stopped it but I did stop it almost catching it. I grabbed the ball and touched the runner going by me going to first with the ball in my hands to end the inning. I did not break any figures and the ball just hit the meat of the palm of my hand so it was just really sore the rest of the game. When you play positions like catcher or first base where those positions will literally see the ball the most during any game, it is a concept that will get drilled into you from the very beginning starting at tee ball - stop the ball by any means necessary.

There are obviously more frequent situations where bare handing the baseball will come into play. What happened to me in that type of situation was like a once in million situation that just happened to work out. But any barehanded drills are basically about improving hand/eye coordination making you look at the ball into your glove for fielding purposes.

 

1-0 ucf. top 4th now.
solo home run vs brown to lead off the bottom 1st. florida is hitless with just a walk to erickson. which was erased by a Double play.
erickson did throw out an attempted base base stealer.

 

looks like sarah is pitching. if i remember she kept florida off balance until inning 6

 

update 7-3 gators bottom 8.

 

OK. I've got most of the game from two different feeds. It was an eight inning game. Gators won 7-3. They had a complete lineup refresh after the first five innings. Sarah Willis pitched the first four for UCF and we could do nothing against her other than a Skylar two run bomb. No other hits. Jocey walked twice. Katie walked twice. Mia and Avery were HBP. That was it for the first five. Ava went the first five in the circle. Some good. Some not so good. She gave up seven hits and three runs. Struck out two and walked one. I believe all three were earned. There was a play with UCF runners on 1st and 2nd. They took off on a taken bunt where Ariel playing third charged and Skylar tried to cover third on a throw from Jocey. I think the throw was wide and Skylar couldn't get there in time. Potentially an unearned run but there were a couple hits to follow so I think the runner, safe at third instead of scoring, would have scored anyway making it an earned run. Starting with the sixth, our bats came alive. Skylar had a single and a walk. Jocey had a two rbi bomb and an rbi single. Reagan doubled and was HBP. Mia walked. Brooke walked twice. Cassidy singled. Emily singled on a bunt (not sure she's ever done that before). Kendra had a two rbi double. Keagan went the three innings and was on fire. Gave up a hit to her first batter and they got nothing after that. Three strikeouts and a walk.

 

One of the good things about Ava....she had bases loaded in that tough inning but then got both Jasmine Williams and Jada Cody to ground out with no more damage. Both Williams and Cody are top level players.

 

Agreed. Rothrock appeared more solid, but obviously this is only one outing.

UCF seems better than I remember them. Some nice individual efforts.

Anyone present have takeaways?

 

Keagan is a strikeout pitcher. Ava is not. Haven't seen enough of Olivia Miller to know. The fact that Keagan is pitching and pitching well lessens a lot of the previous worries.