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Viewing and use of this website is considered agreement to PBI’s Terms and Conditions of Service. You will make contact with the ground with your bent knee and the upper part of the back of your straight leg. Using a cone or base, set it at the end of the surface to get an understanding of how you need to slide to make proper contact with the plate.

Though, many people think sliding makes it more likely that you will be out. There is no correct answer here, but general consensus is that it’s not really advantageous to do so. I am going to give each boy a pennant that they can hang in the dugout during games to show off their patches. That said, as you look to move up and even start to go after online competition, you should consider adding manual sliding to your repertoire. While the CPU mostly makes good decisions at lower difficulties, you might find yourself wanting more control as you move onto stiffer competition. I have used the following to successfully teach sliding, even to kids who were deathly afraid to try.

When attempting a take out slide, the base runner cannot initiate contact with the defender, meaning the runner has to attempt a real slide. However, the runner can direct the slide at the defender as previously discussed. Major League Baseball has created rules for sliding that players must follow under penalty of an automatic “out” being called.

You will want to mark a 3-5 foot distance from the plate to act as a sliding zone. Going into a slide, you are going to be moving your body at a decent rate of speed, most likely toward another human being. This can result in potential contact, so making sure that you are keeping yourself as safe as possible is vital. Once you have your body position down and everything feels comfortable, then you can try practicing by laying a tarp down over grass.

While the Pirates were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night, Castro’s phone fell out of his back pocket while he was sliding headfirst into third base. The main reason players would want to slide with their back towards the throw is because it’s always possible the defensive player misses the ball. Some players have more practice sliding feet-first with one leg so it makes more sense for them to just stick with that specific leg whenever they slide. This is because the better a player is at sliding, the better the chance they have of being called safe. Our passion is to help baseball players maximize their potential. We hope to keep all or most of the info on PBI free so that everyone can have access to it.

Pop-up slide is the most common way young players taught to slide because it is fairly simple to teach and the it hurts the least out of all sliding techniques. Feetfirst sliding is where a baserunner starts to slid with his legs first. There is no place for such behavior in baseball, at any level so please impress on your young ball players to play baseball the right way. If an umpire determines that a runner curveball vs breaking ball intentionally and maliciously runs into a defensive player, he will call the runner out and possibly even eject that player. If you have coached or been a parent of a ball player, you probably have seen some of them complain when a player does not slide when running home to score. More often than not (unless it’s a busted play), a baserunner will arrive at the base about the same time as the ball.

To do a headfirst slide, run full speed, then lean forward and dive horizontally, landing on the heels of your hands and your chest. Keep your palms down but your fingers off the ground to avoid crushing them into the base. Dig the toes of your shoes into the dirt if you need to stop the slide. The hook slide, also called the backdoor slide, is essentially the same as the bent-leg slide–the only thing you’ll be changing is where you aim your body. You’ll start your slide slightly later and aim past the bag, not straight at it.

Meanwhile, tilting the stick down puts you into a feet first slide. For most situations, this is the standard slide as it both gives you some extra distance and makes you a smaller target for the fielder to tag. This is the slide we’d go with if you’re not sure what to do. This dive generates that extra distance by diving into the bag.