Double Play Player Positioning

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 professional baseball, would buy packs of trading cards featuring their favorite players. 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, learn the fundamentals of a double play from a baseball coach who has played and studied the game most of his life. He explains where each player should be when getting into double play position. Then he takes you through each double play situation for each position, even explaining possible outfield double plays. Learn the fundamentals of one of the most exciting plays in baseball from someone who has the right experience.

Video Transcript

"In this section we're going to talk about playing in double play depth. Now when you're playing normal, this is normally in baseball or in softball how; how, how all the positions are played but when you play the double play depth the two middle infielders are playing closer to our second base so that way they have an easy jump to get the first out here. The corners they play off the line because we assume that the ball might be going up the middle; the third baseman covers the gap here and the first baseman covers the gap over here. When the ball is normally hit, it is easier for each of the two middle infielders who have the; who have the field second base, who covers second base, to make the play as opposed to running as far as when they were when they were playing normal. When playing third base, this is where you play normal hugging the line but on the double play deck we take a couple steps; about 2 to 3 steps away from the line covering the hole that's right here vacated by the shortstop. When you're playing short; short plays normal right here fairly deep but when they're playing double play deck they play closer to second base because if the balls hit to the right side they have a shorter distance of covering second base. The second baseman who normally plays deep on this side and away from the bag; it plays closer around here also cutting off the distance from covering second base. And the first baseman who normally plays the line; plays off the line to cover the hole vacated by the second baseman when while she was playing normal. And that's the way we play for a double play in baseball and softball."