Order 01
By the
Numbers
Every position on the field has a number, and the number never changes. It isn't a ranking. It's an address.
Coaches use them. Scorebooks use them. Every conversation you'll ever have about defense uses them. When a coach says "we've got a play at 5," he isn't giving you a code — he's giving you a location, and he expects you to already know where it is.
The numbers don't run in base order, and that's what trips people up. They start with the two men who touch the ball on every single pitch — the pitcher and the catcher — and then they run around the infield starting at first base, and finish left to right across the outfield.
Learn them cold. Six-four-three isn't three numbers, it's a sentence: shortstop to second to first, and that's two outs.
The Nine
Four Reps — Write It In
Your coach says he wants the next ball hit to 6 to go to 4 for the force. Say it back in position names.
Ground ball to the shortstop. He flips to second for one, and second fires to first for two. Write it the way a scorebook would.
A pop fly drops between 7 and 8. Which two of your teammates just let it drop?
Write your own number here, and then the number of the teammate you throw to most often.
The Trap
Almost everybody guesses that second base is 2. It's 4. The counting starts with the battery — pitcher, then catcher — and only then goes around the infield. Say this out loud five times and it sticks: three, four, five, six is first, second, third, short.
This is the smallest order in the book and the one I'd fight hardest for. Not because the numbers matter on their own, but because a kid who knows them can follow a conversation he used to just stand next to. That's the first time the game slows down for you.
Know your number.
Know all eight of theirs.
Order 02
Reading
the Board
There are five facts on a baseball field at all times. Every one of them changes what you should do with the ball. Most players know maybe two.
Outs decide where the out is — with two down you take the easy one, with none down you might get greedy. Runners decide whether it's a force or a tag. Score decides whether you'd trade a run for an out or never. Inning decides how much time is left to get it back. Count decides what the hitter is likely to do to you.
Four of those five hold still for a whole at-bat. One of them moves every single pitch. That's why this is a pre-pitch habit and not a between-innings habit.
The Five Facts
Four Reps — Write It In
Runner on second, nobody out. Ground ball right at you at shortstop. Where's your throw?
Same exact ball, same exact spot — but now there are two outs. Did your answer change?
You're up six runs in the last inning. Runner on third, ground ball to you. What are you willing to give up?
Count is 0–2 on the hitter. What does that tell you about where the ball is probably going, and how does it change where you stand?
The Trap
Reps A and B are the same batted ball and they have different right answers. That's the whole point of this order. Any player who gave the same answer twice is playing the ball instead of playing the game.
Watch a good high school shortstop between pitches. His head is on a swivel and his lips are moving. He isn't nervous, he's counting. Everything that looks like instinct at that level is really just somebody who checked the board a thousand more times than you did.
Before every pitch,
take the count.
Order 03
The Situation
Report
Knowing the five facts isn't the same as having a plan. The situation report turns what you know into what you'll do — before you have to do it.
It's one sentence, and it always has the same shape: "If it comes to me, I'm going to ______." Say it out loud or say it under your breath, but say it. Thinking it isn't the same. Something about putting it in words makes your feet believe it.
The reason this works has nothing to do with baseball. A decision you've already made is a decision you don't have to make while a ball is skipping at you. You're not faster than the other guy. You just started earlier.
And here's the part most players miss — the report changes when the facts change. The count moves every pitch, which means your report gets said again every pitch. Nine fielders, nine different reports, all of them out loud, all of them new.
Four Reps — Write It In
Runner on first, one out, you're at second base. Write your report, out loud first, then here.
Same runner, same out, but now you're in right field. New position, new report.
Bases loaded, nobody out, you're the pitcher. This one has two answers depending on where the ball goes. Write both.
Nobody on, two outs, you're at third base. Some players think there's no report to make here. Prove them wrong.
The Trap
Saying it once an inning feels like doing it. It isn't. The count is one of your five facts and it moves every pitch, so the report moves every pitch too. A report you made three pitches ago is describing a game that isn't happening anymore.
I can hear this one from the dugout, which is why I love it. When nine Generals are all mumbling to themselves between pitches, we've never played worse. Quiet infields make errors. Noisy ones make plays.
Say the play before
the pitch. Every pitch.
Order 04
Force
or Tag
This is the most-missed idea in youth baseball, and it costs more outs than any dropped ball ever will.
A runner is forced when the batter becomes a runner and there is nowhere else for him to go. He has to run, so you don't have to touch him — you just have to touch the bag before he gets there. If he doesn't have to run, he's not forced, and the only way to get him is to put the ball on him.
Work it from first base backward. Somebody on first? He's forced. Nobody on first? Nobody behind him is forced either, no matter how many runners are standing out there.
Runner on second and third, nobody on first, ground ball to you — those two runners can stand on their bags all day and laugh at you. Your only out is at first.
Work It Backward From First
Four Reps — Write It In
Runners on second and third, nobody out. Slow ground ball right to you at third. What's your play?
Bases loaded, one out, ground ball to you at third and you're standing near the bag. Where's the easiest out on the field?
Runner on first only. He takes off on the pitch and the batter grounds it to short. Is that runner still forced?
Runner on third only, one out, ground ball to you. He breaks for home. What do you do first?
The Trap
Rep B catches almost everybody. Bases loaded, ball to third, and the kid turns and throws to first — while he's standing two feet from a force bag with a runner sprinting into it. Home was free. He gave it away because he'd already decided that ground balls go to first.
I've seen a kid chase a runner back toward second who was never forced to leave it in the first place. That's not a baseball mistake, that's a language mistake — he didn't have the word for what was happening. Give him the word and the play shows up on its own.
Decide force or tag before
the ball is hit, not after.