Increase your baseball and softball hand reflexes and mitt speed with golf ball training

As a young baseball/softball player in my late teens and early 20s, I developed a simple drill that dramatically increased my hand speed, my ability to get my glove where it needed to be instantly, any eye speed when the ball came towards me high speed.

This may sound crazy, but I guarantee you it works like a charm. It has worked for me for 50 years and it still works for me today.

Put on the glove and find a concrete wall with concrete on the ground in front of the wall. Take a golf ball and start throwing it slowly against the concrete wall (at slow speeds to start with) and catch it with the strap of your glove.

To field the rollers, bounce the golf ball off the wall to where it hits the concrete on the ground in front of the wall and back toward you. To field fly balls, first bounce the golf ball off the concrete on the ground in front of the wall.

Start slowly and increase the speed with which you throw the golf ball in increments. The ball will come out of the wall at incredible speeds once you develop your ability to catch it.

This drill works great for several reasons:

* The ball is small and once you practice fielding such a small ball, a baseball or softball looks like a big balloon coming at you and makes it easier to pick up with your eyes and glove.

* The ball will come at you at incredible speeds and once you increase your reaction time to catch it at high speeds, a baseball or softball will appear to be in slow motion when it hits you.

* Catching a golf ball at high speeds greatly increases hand-eye coordination and makes it much easier to catch a baseball or softball.

Experiment with this simple exercise and you’ll be amazed at how well and how quickly your skill level increases.