I have to admit that watching a coach who cannot hit with a fungo is pretty comical. It’s something that takes some coordination and quite a bit of practice so I don’t mean to imply that it’s easy and should be mastered by everyone.
If hitting fungos is not your thing, try the soft-toss version.
If you find yourself among the fungo-challenged then there is hope. Actually, there’s more than just hope. There is a drill that can help you as well as help your infielders too! I’ve heard it called the Short Fungo Drill but I’m sure there is a better name for it out there somewhere. It’s pretty simple too.
A player or coach stands off to the side of the guy with the fungo and soft-tosses a ball into the hitting area like you would for a normal soft-toss hitting drill. The guy with the fungo hits the ball to the infielder. That’s it.
The drill does a couple things:
First, it helps the guy with the fungo if he is not good in his ability to toss the ball to himself when hitting fungos (poor self-tosses are usually what hurts the fungo-challenged the most). Second, the infielder benefits because he has the ability to practice seeing the ball off the bat in a more realistic manner than if the coach tossed the ball up to himself.
Coach and player benefit at the same time. What a concept!
Tomorrow’s post: Double your batting practice productivity
