The coaching points of movement pattern in infield fungoes defense among college baseball players

Abstract

    The purpose of this study was to clarify the basic movement patterns and factors for changing these patterns at the catching of grounders among the infielders of college players. Three college baseball players who had had more than ten yearsʼ experience as infielders received 100 fungoes thrown from the shortstop position to first base. All these attempts were recorded using a video camera. The three persons who had had a baseball career of more than ten years watched these images of playing and categorized these plays into 5 categories (“direction of the batted ball”, “catching bound”, “handling”, “the stepping manner”, and “throwing”). And they also assigned 12 labels for the 5 categorized plays with the agreement of all three of them for all plays. After categorization, we counted the number of each label in each category. Moreover, we performed statistical analysis using the chi square test with the cross tabulation for examining the relationship of two categories. When the result of the chi square test was statistically significant, we processed the residual analysis. The infielders of college players were assumed to have the following movement as the basic movement pattern. Namely, “direction of the batted ball” was the “front”, “catching bound” was “long bound”, “handling” was “both hands”, “the stepping manner” was “one-step”, and “throwing” was “overhand throw”. However, as a result of residual analyses, “handling” used “single hand” when “direction of the batted ball” was the “right side”, and “the stepping manner” used “plural steps” when “catching bound” was “half bound”. The above results show that the infielders of college baseball players changed their movements quickly in response to such change of situation. Therefore, it is necessary for the coaches to instruct them in the basic movement patterns and also corresponding plays for sudden situation changes in defense coaching.