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Fun Hitting Drills:
'Arizona Baseball Hitting Game'

Simple fun hitting drills are a treasure for youth baseball coaches. As a quality baseball coach using fun baseball drills perks up the energy level of the ball players.

This baseball article is a quick batting practice drill to set up. It takes about fifteen minutes at the most and you are done. The team batting drill works in nicely at the end of practice.

Baseball Basics

The Arizona fun Hitting Drills Game is mostly for baserunning skills and baseball conditioning. I would not spend a whole lot of time on this team batting drill because it does not utilize very many baseball basics or baseball techniques.

There are no baseball throwing drills, infield drills or outfield drills. There is a lot of running and a bit of power hitting though.

Baseball Conditioning

These fun hitting drills are a great baseball workout to get your baseball conditioning in without the baseball players even knowing they are running.

Competition disguises the fact that the players are actually running their tails off.

Crafty skilled hitters will try to analyze the speed of the runners and hit the ball further away from the slower runners.

Oh yes, it is fair game to use your competitive ideas to your advantage.

Baseball Tips on Hitting

Tips for batting are to hit the ball hard and far. How do you hit a baseball further? Practice: The harder and further the ball goes the more likely the shaggers will have to run a long way and the more bases one can touch.

Whether you are coaching baseball drills for high school or teaching baseball drills for beginners, little leaguers or any youth baseball practice these fun hitting drills for batting will promote power hitting for your players.

'Arizona Hitting Game'
How the Drill Works

Divide the team into three equal groups using our Three-Team Format for organizing baseball practice.

Put one group at first base. Have a second group line up behind third base in foul territory. The last group will be up to bat.

Have a coach or player pitch throwing pitches for strikes. Batting practice type pitches work best (or soft-toss makes the game really fast paced).

The game begins with a player from the third base group with one foot on third base. The firstbase group will have one player on firstbase with a foot on the base and ready to run. The coach pitches to the first batter in the batting practice group.

When the ball is hit the batter-runner takes off around the bases. Meanwhile, at the crack of the bat, both runners take off running after the batted ball. Both of the players from the corner bases have to run to the baseball and reach down and touch the ball.

Count how many bases the batter-runner touches before both of the shagging players touch the ball.

Then have the next set of players get ready to go. A new batter gets in the box. Another player in line gets in a ready position on third base and another on first base.

Have the coach pitch and the game continues with the team up the bat counting each base they touch to get a cumulative team total.

Once all the batting team group bats once have the groups rotate one base. The gorup that was up to bat trots to firstbase and lines up in foul ground. The first base group hustles over to third base and has a runner get ready. The group from third base hustles to home plate and has a batter get ready to hit. Once each batter in this group takes a turn at batting the groups all rotate up one base again. The group with the most bases touched is the winner.

• The batting practice groups can bat twice around if time permits. Once is probably plenty of baseball conditioning though.

• Do not permit the player first reaching the ball to ‘assist’ by helping push, kick or redirecting the ball towards the other shagger.

• If the batter runner gets at least half way to the next base give them the base. This encourages baserunners to run hard between bases before the shaggers reach the ball.

• Try to count the hits when the reach the outfield. Count the poorly hit ball that does not reach the outfield as a foul ball. Give the batting team like say two or three pitches to hit the ball hard in the outfield. Baseball tips for the Arizona Game is to help players know how to hit for more power. So, hitters want to hit the ball hard and far so they can touch more bases.

• Give baseball coaching tips to the baserunners as they make turns and cut the corners. Penalize a runner for missing the base. Exception: Home plate is difficult to touch and make a turn. We use the ‘general area’ rule for home plate but all other bases have to be touched.

Enjoy the fun hitting drills!

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