By: Susan Drake

I used to use a metal bucket to transport some of my baseballs. This drill is something that we ended our practices with. I had about 80 baseballs that I would dump in a pile approx. 15 feet up the third baseline and back off of the line approx. 10 feet (out of the target zone). The players would spread out around the infield perimeter. I set the metal bucket at the third-baseline-corner of home plate as the target. I told the kids that the bucket was the target. "DO NOT THROW THE BALLS TO ME." I would stand near the pile of balls and hit grounders to the kids. At any time there were four to five balls in motion. If they hit the target, the metal bucket would ring out. We called the game "Dinger." This game kept every player engaged because of the speed that I could be hitting grounders and get around the rotation. If the players missed fielding the grounder, it was their responsibility to chase it down and get back into rotation. They didn't like missing the grounder because it meant less chances to "Get a Dinger."