Softball Infield Practice Plan for 11 and 12 Year Olds

Pick your hop, own the short game, learn the turn, and say the play before the pitch. The small diamond rewards the decisive twice.

---

Creep-hop timing, dance-step rhythm at jog speed, forehands and backhands at width, all finished on the move at half effort, plus two charged slow rollers. The battery is yesterday's curriculum on today's clock; run it crisp.

---

Varied-bounce rollers with the choice called mid-approach ("BIG!" or "SHORT!") and the backward drift banned: attack to the chosen hop, field, finish. Ten reps. The in-between hop eats only the undecided; naming the choice out loud builds the decider until it is silent and instant.

Close-range firm serves into the ground a glove's length out: glove out front and FIRM, forehand and backhand both, ball smothered at the bounce's first inch. Twelve reps. The pick is softball's daily bread at the corners and the turn; practiced on purpose it becomes a trophy instead of a terror.

---

Softball's signature play: dead and dying rollers charged at FULL commitment, fielded on the run (glove-side foot, or the drilled bare-hand pickup on truly dead balls, taught gently: fingers scooping through the grass, thumb on top), and thrown three-quarter or sidearm on the run in one motion. Eight reps with a counted runner. Grade the charge's courage before the throw's polish; this play has no version where hesitation works.

Coverage decisions at the imagined corner: you announce the picture ("slapper up, runner on first!"), the kid creeps in on the pitch-call, then handles what comes: the charge play to first, the firm-hop pick with the LOOK to second (freeze the lead runner, take the sure out), or the pop-up freeze ("BALL-BALL!"). Six scenarios. The short game is chess at sprint speed; the pre-decided answer is the only answer fast enough.

---

Double-play school on the tighter clock: close feeds as firm underhand tosses chest-high (ball shown all the way), wider ones as quarter-turn flips, turns received across the bag with feet through it and the re-throw out before your counted runner arrives. Ten plays alternating roles. Softball double plays are rarer and more precious than baseball's; clean exchanges are what make them possible at all.

Tag school: straddle, receive, sweep DOWN to the bag's front edge, ball-first always (catch before tag, no exceptions), plus the swipe-tag on throws arriving up-line. Six reps from varied angles. Fast runners make sloppy tags expensive; low quick sweeps make fast runners irrelevant.

Situations with the plan said BEFORE every ball ("ground ball to me, I'm looking at two!"), executed on whatever actually comes, including mid-play changes called aloud (a bobble that flips the answer to "take one!"). Eight situations. The sentence is the infielder's pre-flight check; silence is the only wrong answer.

---

What to watch today: hesitation at the short game. Every softball infielder meets the slapper eventually; the ones who thrive met the charge play in the yard first. When the full-commitment charge with the on-the-run throw stops feeling like bravery and starts feeling like routine, this infielder has learned the sport's signature lesson: on the small diamond, decisiveness is the whole currency.