How to Coach the Bases in Little League

Coaching the bases is a very important part of little league, because you have to prepare the runner for several situations that may occur.

It's not my years as a college baseball player (UCLA 1988 to 1993) that help me coach/teach baseball; it's my years working at the UCLA baseball camps and my teaching experience since 1996 that helps me coach little leaguers.

Here I would like to share some tips for coaching the bases.

Instructions

    • 1

      If you are giving the kids signals like bunt, steal, take or hit and run, make sure that you keep the signals simple; the chances of the other team trying to steal your signals are pretty low, but if they are stealing the signals it will be obvious--in which case you can implement a more complicated signal system by adding an indicator before the signal.

    • 2

      Make sure the kids run hard to first base if they walk. It sends a message to the other team that your team hustles and could cause them to rush a throw later in the game.

    • 3

      Make sure the kids run through first base no matter where they hit the ball.

    • 4

      Use hand/arm signals for what you want the kids to do, but it's even more important to yell your instructions to the kids. The problem with arm signals is that if the kids are looking at you when they are running, they usually stand fully erect, which slows down their running significantly.

    • 5

      Tell each runner how many outs there are. If there are 0 or 1 out, you should tell them to run on a ground ball and freeze on a line drive or pop up. If there are 2 outs, tell them to run on anything hit.

    • 6

      Make sure the kids know to never, ever slide or dive into first base.

    • 7

      Make sure that the kids do not leave early (or else they will be called out!).

    • 8

      Never touch a runner. Many times base coaches nudge the runner in the direction they want them to run, and that should be an automatic out.