Baseball Coaching Tip: Why batter/baserunners should always run through the bag at first base.

"A True Story That Shows The Importance
of Running Out Everything To First Base."

It was a high school game. The home team was batting, down one run, 3-1, with bases loaded and two outs. The count was 3-2 and runners were moving on the pitch. The batter, who was the home team's #2 hitter, got a fastball on the outter half. He was expecting it and he got "all of it"! He ripped a hard linedrive right at the second baseman's open glove.

The batter seeing the ball go into the fielder's glove immediately slumped in disappointment half way to first. He goes down to his knees with his face in his hands. He was basically "feeling sorry for himself". In the meanwhile he wasn't aware that the ball went through the webbing of the secondbaseman's glove. The secondbaseman had to look behind himself, go get the ball and throw to first for the out. The secondbaseman was quick as a cat so this didn't really take long.

However, the batter has great speed and would have been safe at first. The saddest fact of all is that the two runners moving on the pitch crossed homeplate. They both would have scored and the home team would have won the game if the batter would have just done what his coaches had told him hundreds of times since his Little League days, "Run Everything Out, Don't Assume Anything & Don't Think Until You Know!

Have a great day,
Nick