Scrambled Eggs Sliding
Many coaches have used methods such as sliding in wet grass or having the
player grab a bat held horizontal to get the feel for sliding. I'm not going to
disagree with those methods - they work great. But to give the girls some
incentive to learn sliding, I told them we'd practice with raw eggs in their
hands!
We would start the season practicing to slide the same way most coaches do,
wet grass, grabbing the bat, under a loosely held rope, etc. And when they were
doing a pretty good job at it, I'd bring the eggs to practice. Just imagine two
dozen eggs and one dozen girls!
I'd line them up at 1st base. The object was to hold on to the eggs, run
towards second, slide, and don't break the eggs! This promotes having the hands
over the head and a nice clean slide into 2nd.
Don't give each girl two eggs - use the same two eggs over and over. After
they've each made the trip to 2nd base twice (I doubt if your eggs will be
broken yet), put a rope across the path -- about three feet in front of 2nd base
for them to slide under. This will give them the incentive to stay low on the
slide. MAKE SURE THE ROPE IS HELD VERY LOOSE!
After they've done that two times, take the eggs and have one of the players
come and look at them. Point out the fact that there are lots of little cracks
in the eggs and that they're getting pretty weak.
Now comes the fun part. Get the girls to slide into 2nd, pop-up and run to
3rd and slide. Then they should run to 1st and hand the eggs off. See if you
can get through this without breaking the eggs!
The girls will have fun. The parents may think you're nuts, but I can
pretty much guarantee you'll have taught young girls how to slide without
putting their hands down to "brace the fall".