Baseball 101: The Fundamentals of Throwing and Catching

First, the bad news: We’re entering the home stretch of the 2016 Major League Baseball season. The trade deadline is August 1. Teams are jockeying for postseason position (or beginning to look ahead to 2017). And David Ortiz is taking a victory lap in his final season. This is also the time of year when youth baseball begins winding down, culminating with the Little League World Series on August 18-28.

The good news, though, is that you can keep playing baseball all year ‘round — or, at the very least, work on your skills. That’s especially true for throwing and catching a baseball. And to get you started we have some core skills tips from former major leaguer Harold Reynolds.

In this video, recorded on our tour of the MLB Network studios in April, Reynolds walks you through the best way to grip a ball and how to catch one. It’s a great series of tips for any and all ballplayers!

While you’re here, we thought we’d give you some bonus baseball, courtesy of Washington Nationals superstar Bryce Harper. He appears on MLB Network’s Play Ball Saturday, July 30, at 10 a.m. ET, and we have a sneak peak. Check out the clip below, then tune in to MLB Network for the whole episode this weekend.




Video: Taylor Ballantine (kid reporter demo)