The Art of Communication: Part One An Introduction

Number three on my list of things I want to establish in my program behind trust and processes is communication. Now in implementing communication you have to build processes for it so I guess it all ties together.

I believe very strongly in team building. I believe coaches should put the majority of their time in building team related concepts. I do believe you can make players better and that is important but over the course of the two and a half months you spend with them there is only so far you will take them.

However, you can build the team aspect much further in that short period of time. One of these team aspects that is critical to us is the art of communication. We want everything verbally communicated before it happens. Then we want strong verbal communication while it is happening. The combination of these two concepts can elevate a teams play as quick as anything !

In part one I am going to explain why it is important to communicate as a team.

Pre-Pitch Communication

As I said earlier we want everything verbally communicated before each batter. Even though players should know where to be without being reminded communicating this way does four things to improve your ball club.

First, it's a check and balance system like the government only it works much better. It reminds players what they need to do. They are either saying what to do to someone else or someone is saying it to them.

Second, when mistakes happen. A ball is kicked, a batter is hit, whatever the case may be, they have a process they must follow before the next hitter. It actually does help the eye rolling, dirt kicking, feel bad for me type behaviors.

If they are not communicating because they are feeling bad or being a baby then you have grounds to take them out of the game. Your not even sitting them because they blew the ground ball but because they didn't follow protocol.

Instead of all that nonsense and self-defeating behavior they have a job to do! Because they are talking more, your players will also do a better job of picking each other up after mistakes!

Third, because players are communicating they get a sense of playing the game the right way. Their knowledge of the game goes way up. They begin to think about what they are going to do with the ball before it is hit to them. They have to because they need to communicate it before the pitchers first pitch.

When they know what they are going to do with the ball then their confidence level goes way up. If they are indecisive about what they are gonna do then the chance of them fielding the ball goes down.

This is what you will begin to see in your players. They will begin to build an air about themselves. They will take pride in themselves and their ball club because they are playing the game the right way. They will know it, feel it, and most importantly learn to love it.

Fourth, it is extremely intimidating to opposing teams. All teams constantly watch their opponent. You know whether or not the opposing team is any good by the way they take infield/outfield.

Communicate and let them hear you communicate. Let them see you have your act together. Baseball is as mental a sport as anything on earth. As human beings were are always judging those around us. This is no more true then in baseball. Let them hear you play the game the right way and put a chink in their armour.

After The Ball Is Hit Communication

Once the ball is put in play it is essential that you can communicate where to go with the ball. This usually falls mainly on the catcher but other players need be involved as well. What this allows you to do is eliminate runs.

The catcher communicating where to go with the ball stops you from throwing the ball around and giving up free bases. Free bases will kill your ball club as quick as anything. Even though we want to be aggressive on defense there are many times we need to just concede the run and stop other base runners from moving up.

Another serious part of communication is between the players themselves. We do not want balls dropping between players because they are unsure of who has it or if they will get run into. We don't want players missing balls near fences because they are worried about getting hurt.

We can eliminate those situations if we can communicate effectively so the player catching the ball can focus only on the ball without any other fear factors going through their mind.

In conclusion

By verbally communicating we will be able to eliminate runs. It has never been our goal to shut teams out only to eliminate as many runs as possible. We were very successful in doing just that and it led to some great baseball.

In part two we will discuss the system we used for pre-pitch communication. I will give examples of how we called everything and how we practiced it.

In part three we will cover after the ball is hit communication.