How to Stretch for Baseball

Series Summary

Baseball came into its own in North America in the 18th century, deriving from common stick and ball games, like Rounders, brought over from England and Ireland. Until recently, baseball had been recognized as "America's Pastime," but without a high-profile collegiate system in place, and after a series of player strikes, the game has waned in popularity slightly and given many fans reason to doubt its place in American culture of the 21st century. The “baseball card” industry was a popular phenomenon that took off in Post-World War II America, where kids, usually boys dreaming of one day playing ball professionally, would buy packs of trading cards featuring their favorite players and a stick of chewing gum. In a rush of nostalgia, baseball card collections began garnering huge prices at auctions, and a new generation of kids began collecting cards as financial investments with little success.

In this free video series, watch our expert Bill Rogan show you the best ways to catch and field baseballs. Bill shows you the fundamentals to catching and scooping grounders and flies and how to turn those into outs for your team. He covers positioning the glove, breaking in your glove, catching a ball in the sun, tagging out a runner, and how to turn a double play. He also tells you the way professionals call a catch and communicate on the field. After watching this series, you will be playing like a pro. Go Detroit!!

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Bill Rogan along with Andy and on behalf of Expert Village, we're going to talk some defensive baseball today. The first thing you do is you stretch out. I have not thrown this baseball yet because I have not warmed up or stretched out. That's what we're going to do real quick right now. Just stretch out the groin right here a little bit. You don't want to bounce. Just stretch out a little bit. Lean in. Pull your toes up toward you. I like to make a V. Stretch out this way and put your head down. And you do this. You don't want to push it too much, but you also want to feel it stretching. You'll want to make sure you stretch out your quads. Whenever you stretch out your quads, you'll also want to stretch your hamstring. I like to go side to side. This stretches out the groins and the hamstring. Also, you put your feet together and just go down. You don't want to bounce. Cross your toe and your feet over. Do it there and do it on the other side. If you're heavily muscled, you might need to take an extra 5 minutes or so to stretch. If you're a little guy and you stretch out pretty quickly that's fine too. Make sure you stretch. You want do some trunk twists. I also like to loosen up the shoulders. It's very important because you're going to be throwing a baseball One throw, if you're not stretched out and warmed properly, you can really hurt your arm."