What's up, baseball players.
I'm coach Dan Blewett In today's video, let's cover how to grip a baseball
for beginners
All right.
So if you knew here, I'm Coach Dan, I'm a former pro baseball player.
I was a pitcher and if you're new to my channel, definitely subscribe.
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So we're going to cover the basics and gripping a baseball.
So here's the first thing to understand.
Obviously, a baseball has seams, right?
So the seams are where we want our fingertips to go.
So out of our finger.
We want to make sure this is right in the center of a seam.
So as a release is off our fingertips.
That is going to give us the best grip that we possibly can.
So that's the first thing to understand.
So when you do grip the ball, you don't want to have your fingertips
just in the center where the leather is pretty slick.
So you want to have them over top of the seams themselves.
So now there's a couple of basic grips that you want to get
and we'll cover when you get them and how you get them in a second.
But the main grip you want to get playing the field.
So whether you're an infielder or outfielder or even a catcher,
you want to get what's called a four seam grip.
So if you look at the ball here, you'll see that this horseshoe
goes sideways I'm going to cross my two fingers over this horseshoe.
And then as the ball flies, it spins.
One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
So from the side, one to three, four.
That's what we call a four seam grip.
And basically a four seam grip is going to be it's going to have true or flight.
It's going to resist gravity
a little bit better than a two seam grip or any other like random grip.
So it's going to have a little better carry.
It'll stay straighter to your targets, especially if you have a long throw.
It's really important to try to get a four seam grip if you can.
Now, a two seam grip is something that pitchers throw
and basically you're going to hold the ball like this
and you put your fingers between the two seams or across the two seams,
and as it flies, it'll go one to 12.
That's why we call it a two seam grip.
So this is not something you want to grab voluntarily
as an infielder, as an outfielder, as a catcher,
you're never going to choose to throw a two seamer.
That's only something that pitchers do
because it'll give them a little bit of arm side movement.
The ball will run a little bit or sink a little bit.
So a four seam grip is always what you want to try to get
when you have the time as as a position player.
Now, here's the things to understand.
You will see, like in the Major League, sometimes guys grab the ball
and they're on the run and they pick it up and they throw it
and they're just sort of plucking it off the ground
and whatever way they get it is the way they're going to throw it.
And that's that's normal.
And sometimes the play happens so fast that you don't have time
to get a four seam grip.
But other times when you get a ground ball and you have time to set your feet
and take a couple of shovels before throwing,
you're going to want to figure out Okay, how did I grab it?
And then you sort of like mix it up.
So you find that for seam grip.
So the big thing to practice at home,
whether you're catching them in the outfield,
is when the ball hits your glove, how fast can you get a four seam grip?
And you just have to start to again play around with it and mix it up in your hand.
Just grab the ball.
If you're sitting on your couch, toss it to yourself and find
a four seam grip.
And the faster you can do that in a game, the more, okay, I pulled it out.
Now I've got a four seam grip
and I'm more likely to make an accurate throw that way.
So that's a really important thing to do.
Couple a couple of the things to note.
If your hands are really small, it's okay to use three fingers.
So for youth players who are just starting out
this is probably the grip that they'll use.
And again, you just want to have your fingers somewhat close together.
If they're really forked wide, you're going to put a wonky pressure on the ball
and you're going to start to make it spin in different ways that you don't want.
Again, we only want backspin, so you want clean backspin.
And to get that, you want to put your fingers close together,
whether using three fingers or two, two is best with the thumb on the bottom.
That's another important part.
So thumb on the bottom, these ones will just fall to the side and two on top.
That's the standard grip but if you're you have a smaller hand
and you want to put three, that's totally fine.
Just make sure they're not forked too wide apart.
Okay.
So those are the basics of how to grip a baseball.
It's not super complex.
You just have to understand that when the play happens really fast,
you'll probably just grab it and throw it as is when you have a little more time.
You catch a fly ball someone throws it to you,
you get a ground ball when you have time to take a couple of shuffles before
making your throw.
That's when you want to try to find that four seam grip.
So you get that cleaner, more accurate throw across the diamond.
All right.
So thanks again for watching.
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