Current Section
- 25 Things
- 2010 Winter Edition
- 2010 Spring Edition
- 2010 Summer Edition
- 2010 Fall Edition
- All News
- Andris Dikmanis, DPT
- Announcements
- Baseline Food & Recipes
- Columns
- College Baseball
- College Baseball Camps
- College Planning
- College Summer Leagues
- College Summer Teams
- High School Baseball
- Hitting Columns
- In The Dugout
- Keg Conditioning
- League News
- Life In The Minors
- Little Leagues
- Major League Strength
- Matt Lemanczyk
- Most Read Articles
- One On One
- Running The Bases
- Softball News
- Strength & Conditioning
- Team News
- Torque AP
- Tournaments
- Travel Teams
Running the Bases; 1B
01/01/2010, 10:08pm (EDT)
By Matt Lemanczyk
“Lou Brock was a great base stealer, but today, I am the greatest of all-time.” - (May 1991) Ricky Henderson, 12-time stolen base champion, 1,406 career steals
Photo by Ellen Schuerger
Running the bases correctly can be the difference between winning and losing close ball games. Some games your team will be on fire, score tons of runs and it’s a boat race. Other games the opponent just seems to have the upper hand. Then, there’s the rest of the games; close battles that are within seven runs. These are the games where running the bases correctly can be the difference between a victory and a defeat. Go back to October of 2000. The Mets and the Yankees are beginning the best of seven series. All of NY is watching. Timo Perez is on first. Todd Zeille drills the ball to left. Timo takes off. Timo’s focus: scoring. He’s tagged out at home. Call it inexperience, or better yet, call it poor base running. Yankees win game one, 4-3. That series went on to five games, three of the games being the difference of one run.
One thing in the game of baseball will dictate how one should run the bases; the scoreboard. I understand that not all fields have a working and functional scoreboard, but each player and coach need to keep a mental scoreboard. A constant awareness of the score, how many outs , what inning it is, and the hitter’s count. All of these things added up will dictate the aggressiveness in which the base runners should be moving around the bases. In the next few articles, I’lll take you around the bases and explain how you, the baserunner, should be moving. We’ll look at different baserunning scenarios and situations, as well as the thought process that should be taking place, while rounding the bags.
Running the bases doesn’t start once you have reached first base, or any base for that matter. It starts once you enter the on-deck circle and are getting loose. At this time, you, the on-deck hitter should be reviewing the game’s scoreboard (mentally), and strategically visualizing your at base and base running strategies. This is a mandatory process that only takes a few seconds to go through and can be the differnce between getting base or heading back to the dugout. This mental process is critical for the success of not only the batter, but ultimately the entire team. Once it’s time for the batter to enter the batter’s box and hit, the batter needs to put those mental thoughts aside; zone in and focus on the task at hand, hitting the baseball. After the ball is hit, the batter becomes a base runner. The mental preparation that was done while in the on-deck circle will now come into play and assist in proper game speed reactions towards running the bases.
Assuming the ball is hit, there are three different ways to approach 1st base (refer to visuals on the right hand page). All three of these ways require maximum effort at all times. In some cases the level of aggressiveness may change when deciding on whether or not to take the extra base (this would be determined in the batter-box, based on the scoreboard). The first way to approach, referred to as “full steam ahead”, is running as fast as you can down the first base line. When your foot touches the FRONT of the bag, look to your right to see if the baseball got past the first baseman. This occurs when the ball is hit on the ground in the infield. You peek towards the field, 3-5 steps after you leave the box. It will then be apparent that an infielder is going to field the ball. The second way to approach 1st base is referred to as the “Question Mark” turn. This occurs when the ball is hit on the ground.
Initially the runner is thinking “full steam ahead”, but after peeking towards the field after the first 3-5 steps out of the box, he realizes the ground ball has “eyes”, meaning it found a hole through the infield for a hit. Once the ball rolls through the infield, forcing an outfielder to field the ball, the runner needs to belly-out to the right in order to round 1st base, as if he’s going to advance to 2nd. This will help create a shorter distance from 1st to 2nd base, increasing the chance of being safe at 2nd base if the opportunity is there to advance. Finally, the third way to approach 1st base is to simply start rounding 1st base right out of the box. Meaning, once the hitter makes contact with the ball, and he knows the ball is headed to the outfield, the hitter can begin to circle around first out of the box. The hitter does not run directly towards 1st base. Instead he takes a long wide path (to the right) in order to pre-round 1st base. It is important to do this so the hitter creates a straight path from 1st base to 2nd base, in case he has the opportunity to advance. This straight path may be the difference between being safe on a potential double or being thrown out.
Initially the runner is thinking “full steam ahead”, but after peeking towards the field after the first 3-5 steps out of the box, he realizes the ground ball has “eyes”, meaning it found a hole through the infield for a hit. Once the ball rolls through the infield, forcing an outfielder to field the ball, the runner needs to belly-out to the right in order to round 1st base, as if he’s going to advance to 2nd. This will help create a shorter distance from 1st to 2nd base, increasing the chance of being safe at 2nd base if the opportunity is there to advance. Finally, the third way to approach 1st base is to simply start rounding 1st base right out of the box. Meaning, once the hitter makes contact with the ball, and he knows the ball is headed to the outfield, the hitter can begin to circle around first out of the box. The hitter does not run directly towards 1st base. Instead he takes a long wide path (to the right) in order to pre-round 1st base. It is important to do this so the hitter creates a straight path from 1st base to 2nd base, in case he has the opportunity to advance. This straight path may be the difference between being safe on a potential double or being thrown out.
Stay tuned, next column we will discuss leads and base stealing off of first base.
Tag(s): Columns Baserunning Columns Matt Lemanczyk Home All News
Comments
Let’s get the conversation started! Post your comment.