Diamond Drills: Peters Township’s Joe Maize offers ways to increase hustle

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, April 9, 2018 | 6:42 PM

Baseball and softball find their charm in that both can be very simple in nature — pitch the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball.

But for those who played the game, it's never that easy.

So, while the TribLive High School Sports Network is proud to showcase these baseball and softball players each week with broadcasts and feature articles, there's more that can be done.

We have turned to some of the top district coaches to help shed light on ways high school athletes and younger players can work on their craft to better improve their overall game and abilities.

For the first weekly Diamond Drills, we start with the first thing all ball players must do, taking the field.

In this day and age, when bat flipping and casual trips to first base can be considered cool, Peters Township coach Joe Maize preaches the art of all-out hustle never gets old.

Earlier this season, Maize picked up his 400th career victory and now is in his 34th season at Peters Township. He has guided the Indians to a pair of WPIAL championships and two PIAA runner-up seasons.

“When we started coming down on our southern spring trip to the state of South Carolina, we would take our team to watch a University of South Carolina Gamecocks baseball game,” Maize said. “I was impressed on how the college players would hustle on and off the field (sprints full speed from each position). As coaches we have always emphasized hustling at all times. When a ball is hit back to the pitcher or an easy out to one of the other infield positions, our players always sprinted down to first base.

“But at our first Gamecock baseball game, a player from South Carolina hit a routine fly ball to the center fielder. Everyone in the ballpark knew this was a routine out as the center fielder was camped under the ball. When the ball landed in the outfielder's glove, the player hitting the ball was standing on second base. After watching the way the South Carolina players hustled on and off the field and watching a player hit a routine fly ball but still sprinting to second base as if he hit a double to the gap, it was impressive. I told our coaches that ‘this is the way you are supposed to play the game of baseball.' ”

Peters Township introduced a drill that would reinforce how to do things the “right way” by practicing sprinting on and off the field.

Here's how Maize explains it:

• We split the team in half. One half is on the first-base line while the other half is on the third-base line.

• With a stopwatch in hand, a coach will tell the team to go. The runners who are near the plate area but on the third-base side must sprint to the shortstop position near the outfield grass. The runners on the first-base side near the plate must sprint to the second-base position near the outfield grass.

• All players must be in that position within 6 seconds.

• After they all get to the infield position, then on the coaches command they sprint back to the dugout/home plate area. They have 6 seconds to do this.

• After they do this six-eight times, then we practice how the outfield will sprint all the way to their position. All players run to the infield positions. All players run to the outfield positions.

• We do the same thing as running to the shortstop/second base but now the players are sprinting to the left center or right center fielding position area.

• Players have 12 seconds to sprint to the outfield position. Players then have 12 seconds to sprint back off the field.

• This is a great conditioning drill, but more important it is teaching our players to hustle at all times and play the game the right way. We also do this during games so the players are keeping their legs loose and ready to sprint during a game whether they are making a quick start to get a ball defensively or they are hustling out of the box after putting the ball in play.

Don Rebel is a TribLive High School Sports Network broadcaster and staff writer. Reach him at drebel@tribweb.com.

Tags: Peters Township