How to Grip a Baseball For Beginners
What's up, baseball players. I'm coach Dan Blewett In today's video,
let's cover how to grip a baseball for beginners All right. So if you knew here, I'm Coach Dan, I'm
a former pro baseball player. I was a pitcher and if you're new to
my channel, definitely subscribe. I have tons of stuff for both beginners
and advanced players. The physical stuff,
drills, mechanics, mindset, all that. So if you're new here,
definitely stay around. All right. So we're going to cover the basics
and gripping a baseball. So here's the first thing to understand. Obviously, a baseball has seams, right? So the seams are where we want
our fingertips to go. So out of our finger. We want to make sure this is right
in the center of a seam. So as a release is off our fingertips. That is going to give us the best grip
that we possibly can. So that's the first thing to understand.
So when you do grip the ball,
you don't want to have your fingertips just in the center
where the leather is pretty slick. So you want to have them over
top of the seams themselves. So now there's a couple of basic grips
that you want to get and we'll cover when you get them
and how you get them in a second. But the main grip
you want to get playing the field. So whether you're an infielder
or outfielder or even a catcher, you want to get
what's called a four seam grip. So if you look at the ball here,
you'll see that this horseshoe goes sideways I'm going to cross my two
fingers over this horseshoe. And then as the ball flies, it spins.
One, two,
three, four, one, two, three, four. So from the side, one to three, four. That's what we call a four seam grip. And basically a four seam grip is going
to be it's going to have true or flight. It's going to resist gravity a little bit better than a two seam grip
or any other like random grip. So it's going to have a little better
carry. It'll stay straighter to your targets,
especially if you have a long throw. It's really important
to try to get a four seam grip if you can. Now, a two seam grip
is something that pitchers throw and basically
you're going to hold the ball like this and you put your fingers between
the two seams or across the two seams, and as it flies, it'll go one to 12. That's why we call it a two seam grip. So this is not something you want to grab
voluntarily as an infielder,
as an outfielder, as a catcher, you're never going to choose
to throw a two seamer.
That's only something that pitchers do because it'll give them
a little bit of arm side movement. The ball will run a little bit
or sink a little bit. So a four seam grip is always
what you want to try to get when you have the time as as a position
player. Now, here's the things to understand. You will see, like in the Major League,
sometimes guys grab the ball and they're on the run and they pick it up
and they throw it and they're just sort of plucking it
off the ground and whatever way they get
it is the way they're going to throw it.
And that's that's normal. And sometimes the play happens so fast
that you don't have time to get a four seam grip. But other times when you get a ground ball
and you have time to set your feet and take a couple of shovels
before throwing, you're going to want to figure out Okay,
how did I grab it? And then you sort of like mix it up.
So you find that for seam grip. So the big thing to practice at home, whether you're catching them in
the outfield, is when the ball hits your glove,
how fast can you get a four seam grip? And you just have to start to again play
around with it and mix it up in your hand. Just grab the ball. If you're sitting on your couch,
toss it to yourself and find a four seam grip. And the faster you can do that in a game,
the more, okay, I pulled it out. Now I've got a four seam grip and I'm more likely to make an accurate
throw that way. So that's a really important thing to do. Couple a couple of the things to note. If your hands are really small, it's
okay to use three fingers. So for youth players
who are just starting out this is probably the grip
that they'll use. And again, you just want to have
your fingers somewhat close together. If they're really forked wide, you're
going to put a wonky pressure on the ball and you're going to start to make it spin
in different ways that you don't want.
Again, we only want backspin,
so you want clean backspin. And to get that, you want to put
your fingers close together, whether using three fingers or two,
two is best with the thumb on the bottom. That's another important part. So thumb on the bottom, these ones will
just fall to the side and two on top. That's the standard grip
but if you're you have a smaller hand and you want to put three,
that's totally fine. Just make sure they're not forked too
wide apart. Okay. So those are the basics of how to grip
a baseball.
It's not super complex. You just have to understand
that when the play happens really fast, you'll probably just grab it and throw it
as is when you have a little more time. You catch a fly ball
someone throws it to you, you get a ground ball when you have time
to take a couple of shuffles before making your throw.
That's when you want to try to find
that four seam grip. So you get that cleaner, more accurate
throw across the diamond. All right. So thanks again for watching. If you're new to baseball, definitely subscribe
and stick around with the channel. Check out my online courses and books, which you'll find is in the description
below. Leave a comment if you have one,
and I'll see you in the next video..
