Here are a few of my favorite infield drills that I regularly incorporate into my practices. 

Tennis Ball Drill - good competition drill. No gloves, use tennis racket and tennis balls. Hit them at players. If they bobble the ball or miss it, they're out.

Catch & Tag Drill - Reverse pivot and throw to partner. Partner puts tag down and then reverse pivots to partner. Go back and forth for as many as you like. 

Olympic Drill - this is a fun drill to incorporate a lot of reps and work on all types of groundballs. Since you're rolling the ball, you as the coach have the ability to stay close to your players to give feedback. 

In September, I attended a baseball practice at a local Japanese HS in Tokyo. This was at the tail end of a baseball trip to Japan during which I saw several professional games throughout the country.

Here were a few of my observations from watching the practice (I saw about an hour-hour and a half of the workout).

1. Culture of Respect

In Japan, respect for all things is important, and this was noticeable during the workout. After taking infield/outfield, all players bowed to the field and to the coaches. Also, while walking into the workout, all players removed their hats and greeted me as a visitor to their practice session. Also, anytime that a player spoke to a coach, the player would always remove his hat while listening to the coach.

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2. Hustle and communication

Players would hustle from station to station, even during the clean-up after practice. You can see some of the hustle here in this video.

Communication was also evident during a competition that occured later in the practice.

The competition was setup like this -
5 players would start near home plate, closely lined up along 3B line. You’d have a player for each INF position plus a catcher.

Before taking the field, each player would yell something - mostly just random “rah rah” type stuff.

After all the players have said something, they would all take off for their positions. The SS and 2B would both be in the same position at 2B.

The competition would start with the catcher taking the ball and throwing it to 3B, who would then throw to 2B, who then throws to 1B who then throws back to the C. The team would throw around the horn in this manner 3 times (2B and SS alternate receiving throws at 2B). The goal was to complete the throw it around (3 times) within 17 seconds). You can see a video of the compeition below. If the team failed, they would start over from the beginning, starting from where they took the field.

As you can tell from the above, there was a lot of communication/talking/enthusiasm going on while the drill was happening.

The middle school team also practiced at the same time as the HS team - while the HS team was using the infield, the Jr High team would use the outfield and vice-versa.

3. Japanese live batting practice.

Another thing that the teams did during BP was to do a batting practice with a live pitcher and the bases loaded. The runners at 1B and 2B would always steal, working on jumps, while 3B would work on live reads of batted balls. Each batter would have live counts.

Video of the BP session is below.

Other videos of the practice session are below.

Generally, here are some other observations from watching Japanese professional baseball -

• During INF/OF, when hitting to the 1B, never have the 1B throw to 3B. How many times do you see a 1B make a throw from 1B to 3B in a game, yet this is pretty standard in most people’s infield/outfield routine. Instead, have the 1B make a play that is more likely to happen, like starting a double-play to 2B.
• On the throw it around - most coaches will have their 3B finish off the throw it around by flipping the ball back to the pitcher. In Japanese throw it arounds, they would finish it off by having the 3B make a real throw back to the SS. So, on an out at first, if you would do 1B-SS-2B-3B-P, have the players do 1B-SS-2B-3B-SS-3B with the 3B making a real throw to the SS and back to the 3B then have 3B flip it back to the pitcher. Some Japanese teams would have the SS and 3B make multiple throws back and forth between the SS and 3B before returning the ball back to the pitcher.
• When turning two on the INF, don’t forget about your catchers - after the 1B has done his “turn 2”. Roll a ball out in front of HP and have the catcher do a turn 2.

Here are some video of various Japanese professional INF/OF routines -

Here are some other scenes from Japanese baseball -

Some recent things that I picked up at the Barnstomers event in Dayton -

• OF throwing drill - setup here is that you have 4 OFs who will work together, let's call them P1, P2, P3, P4.

Here's how it looks -
P1 --- 10 feet --- P2 -------------- 120+ feet-------------- P3 --- 10 feet --- P4.

How it works is that the ball starts with P2 who rolls an OF grounder to P1 who fields it then makes the throw to P3. P3 then turns around and rolls an OF grounder to P4 who fields it then makes the throw to P2. Players rotate through by following their throw. This gives them a lot of throws and has them working on hitting the cut off man. You can further develop this drill by having the outfielders work on one bounce throws to the receiving players.

   I've lately come across several different resources related to stress that I believe offer valuable insight into the importance of changing our relationship with stress.
   There are two main points related to stress management that I think are important - 

1. The feeling of excitement and what we call "stress" is the same - it's the context of the situation in which we're feeling them that tells us whether we're experiencing stress or something positive. For example, if you receive a gift, and are excited about it, the feeling is the same as if you're about to give a presentation to a large group. The difference between the two situations is how we feel about the emotional experience that we're having which is driven by the context of the situation. In the gift scenario, you're more likely to associate the feelings you having with a positive experience, because, generally, receiving a gift is a positive experience. In the presentation scenario, you're more than likely to associate your feelings with something negative and say that you're feeling anxiety rather than excitement. The recommendation here is that you should look at your emotions in both situations the same way - in the presentation scenario, look at the emotions that you're feeling in a positive way. Experience them as excitement rather than anxiety. 
2. The other point I've come across is related to the above point and continues to emphasize the importance of changing your relationship with stress. Rather than viewing stress or anxiety as something negative, look at it is something that's helping you. Your emotions are trying to help prepare you for performance. If we look at this negatively, we're less likely to handle the situation well. If we look at this positively, with the idea that the emotions are trying to assist us, we'll handle the situations much better. 

There are two resources that I've recently come across that helped develop my view on this. 
- How to make stress your Friend - TED talk by Kelly McGonigal
- Learning Leader Podcast Episode - How Stress can make you better.

While traveling through Japan to go to baseball stadiums, one issue I encountered was difficultly deciding whether to buy jerseys and/or hats at the stadiums we visited. We would usually only visit a stadium once, so if there was something I saw at the stadium, it was hard to decide whether to buy it or wait in the hopes of seeing something better at a stadium later in the trip. I had wished that there was a store in which I could see everything all at once! Luckily for me, I found such a place late in the Japan trip - an outstanding Japanese baseball sports memorabilia store that even had tons of unique American sports memorabilia, hats, jerseys and other items. 
The store's English name is "Selection" and is located below. 

Here is the direct link to the store's google maps website.

The store has at least 2 storefronts - one contains NFL & NBA jerseys while the one referenced above carries jerseys and hats from all Japanese baseball teams plus many MLB jerseys and shirts. This was hands-down the best jersey store that I came across while in Japan. 

You can even check out this awesome google-street tour of the store!

While at ABCA 2017 in Anaheim, I had a few thoughts and discussions pop up about plate approach that I want to organize here.
For anyone unsure of what this topic means, what it is is what do you tell hitters to look for as they walk up to the plate? Should they always sit on fastball and adjust to offspeed? Should they look locationally, say "middle-in"? 
There are different views on this and some of the ones I mention above are common thoughts. Steve Springer mentions in his talks that he believes that batters should be hunting pitches based on what they see the pitcher throwing. The batter might be a fastball hitter, but if he watches the pitcher and sees that the pitcher is throwing consistent offspeed, the batter should begin to sit on the offspeed pitches that he's seeing thrown. 
Another approach that I discussed at length with another person was the thought that the player should understand his or her own strengths. The player should learn through practice both what TYPE of pitcher he or she is good at hitting (e.g. fastball, curveball, etc.) AND what LOCATION the hitter is best at hitting (e.g., outside, inside, middle, etc.). I definitely liked the idea of this approach about knowing as a hitter what your strengths are, particularly knowing what pitch locations you hit the best. However, I did not like being dependent on a particular TYPE of pitch in your approach. 
So, for me, I think I would take a hybrid approach - definitely know what type of pitch you're best at hitting, know what pitch location you're best at hitting, and also know what type of pitches the pitcher is throwing. At the HS level, my assumption is that pitchers will be throwing mostly fastballs so I think it's safe to assume that we can sit fastball the majority of the time. But, we need to make sure of this by watching the pitcher. I also assume that most HS hitters will also be best at hitting fastballs, but it's worth knowing whether hitting fastballs is your strength or not and if not, what pitch is your strength. Based on information that you learn from watching the pitcher, I would then develop your approach. If he's pitching fastballs, sit on the fastball that's in YOUR ZONE and take anything else until you get to two strikes. Once you get to two strikes, you've got to go into battle mode and make contact on strikes, no matter what the location or type of pitch. 

Interested in your thoughts!
Tom

This is part 3 of my journal of adventures in Japan. You can read the other posts about this trip by visiting my Japan blog page.

Riding the Shinkansen
After my stop at T's Tan Tan, which I wrote about here, I was off to catch the train to Kyoto. The train trip between Japan and Kyoto covers about 320 miles and will take you past Mt. Fuji. If you're headed towards Kyoto you'll want to be on the right side of the train in order to see the famous mountain. By the time I realized where Mt. Fuji was on the route, I never ended up seeing it.

As we're at the resolution-setting part of the year, I am sharing two related posts that I found recently that I liked.
The first one is this blog post by James Clear in which he explains two separate concepts - goals and systems. For coaches, he explains that a goal is to win a championship while a system is what the team does every day to pursue that goal. He further argues that our focus should be our systems, or our daily habits, rather than our goals. If you want to run a half-marathon, focus on running every day, every other day or whatever the frequency is rather than the marathon itself. 
I read this and paired it with the passage below that I recently read in "The Practicing Mind" in which the author wrote that setting goals should be like swimming across a lake with a large tree on the other side. Your goals is the tree. However, to swim to it, you don't stay focused on the tree - you focus on the process of swimming. You do have to look up every once in a while to see if you're still on target for the goal or how much farther you have to go, but if you focused on the tree the whole time, your swimming would suffer and you wouldn't make it. Your goal should be like your rudder - providing direction. Your focus should be on your actions.
The other beauty of these two things is that if you focus on your daily habits and figure out ways to make those habits happen, I'm going to bet that you'll find that you'll not only achieve your goal, but you'll vastly over-achieve it. Returning to the running example, if you make your focus running every day, you will will continually improve at running to a point where you may find when the half marathon rolls around, you're able to run well beyond the half marathon distance. Clear also makes a great reference to book writing, saying that if you set your goal to write a book, you might become intimidated by the prospect of writing the book. If you rather set you sight on a very achievable goal of writing every day, you will probably well exceed your goal.
Another aspect of this that I have read about is spending time understanding your why. Why are you setting that goal? I think the question is going to come up one way or another. If it's to run a race, at some point during your training, you'll hit a point at which you're bummed out, tired and not wanting to proceed. You'll be asking yourself why you're doing it. I read recently that someone who has a strong why can overcome any how.
So, after writing this, some general thoughts. Start first with your goals, identify them. Then identify a why? What greater purpose are they connecting with? Maybe it's to improve your health. Maybe it's to write a book, which may be connected with a greater vision of helping others. Maybe it's winning a championship, but why do you want to win the championship? Next, identify regular, achievable behaviors that you can do that will help you get to your goal. Focus your energy on those. If the going gets tough, come back to your why.
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Interested in your thoughts.
Tom

From Tokyo to Kyoto, or trying to, at least 
After my night at the hotel in Tokyo, it was time to get over to Kyoto, which is about a 2.5hr (320 miles) bullet train ride from Tokyo. While at O'Hare, I had started to doubt my initial plan, which was to go immediately from Tokyo to Kyoto the first day - thinking about it I thought that I might not be optimizing my time in the best way but I knew that I wanted to make it to Mt Koya before the baseball tour began and getting out to Kyoto would get me close to Koya. Anyways, despite doubting my original plan, I set out from the hotel that morning to the local JR (Japanese Rail) station which was a short shuttle ride from the hotel. At this point, I hadn't exchanged my rail voucher for the JR Pass yet and thought that I would be able to do so over at the JR station.
Riding the Rails in Japan - the JR (Japanese Rail), the Shinkansen (bullet train) & more!
Before I go any further, it's worth explaining how the rail system works in Japan. I already mentioned that I had bought a rail pass before heading over to Japan, which was FedEx'd to me via the rail company. The company will mail you what basically amounts to a coupon that you take with you and then exchange at a JR station in Japan. Once you have your rail pass, you'll get access to bullet trains (the Shinkansen) that criss-cross the country in addition to a special train system referred to as the JR. The JR is available in most Japanese cities but is separate from each city's subway system. You'll need separate tickets in each city in order to ride each city's subway system but in some cities, like Tokyo, the JR train might be all you need to get around the city so your JR pass will suit you just fine.
Just to keep this straight - you can think of there being three train systems in Japan. The Shinkansen (the bullet train) which gets you between major cities very quickly, the JR (Japanese Rail) which gives you around within cities, and the individual city subways which, like the JR, gets you around each town. The subways, generally, have much more coverage & stations within cities than the JR. 

I'm fairly certain that I read this somewhere over the past few months but a recent situation brought it back to light. The situation was losing. In this particular situation, I was working a baseball camp and towards the end of the camp, we had a running competition in which two runners would face off against one another. The runners would run a suicide-like sprint. For the uninitiated, this normally works on a basketball court in different variations but a standard one looks like so - the runners run from the baseline to the half-court line, back to the original baseline and then all the way to the opposite baseline. Whichever runner makes it to the opposite baseline last is the "loser." 
So, we had a similar situation setup in our baseball camp. Two campers were facing off in the run and one runner got out to a large lead. The other runner began to realize that he was way behind and started to give up, allowing the other runner to increase his winning margin. 
This situation reminded me of this idea - that even though the losing runner was way behind, the sprint still represented an opportunity for him to improve. He might lose this race, but if he fails to take advantage of the opportunity to give his full effort and improve, he lessens the chance that he is going to win in the future.
The applications to baseball are pretty obvious here, but I'll present this situation - your team is losing in the middle or late in the game. If the margin is large enough, this presents a pretty good opportunity for a team to give up and just try to get the game over. However, the team needs to be reminded that this is a learning opportunity and although the score might be out of hand, it's a chance for them to improve for future competitions. Who knows, with this mindset, you might even get the team to rally and come back to win the game.
There's another twist on this that I came across while watching a small college fall practice this year. The college team was split up into two squads and they were completing their annual fall world series. Rather than keeping a culmulative score for the entire game, the score was based on how many innings each team won during the game. So the overall score did not matter! Team 1 could have scored 50 more runs than Team 2 overall, but if Team 2 won more innings during the game than Team 1, Team 1 would emerge victorious. I thought that this was a great idea to maintain competitiveness during games even when one team jumps out to a big lead - change the objective for sustained effort.