Catchers

[CallingCadence14]

Why do people teach rounding wild pitches blocking them toward home plate?Is a straight line quicker and blocking towards the infield to see the runners better?Just curious,I see it tought the rounding in a smiley face all the time and although it looks right why does it seem wrong?
Probability of rounding the ball on a wild pitch in the dirt and actually dropping and blocking,instead of straight line cut off and dropping to block towards the infield has got to be easier.Please someone help me out here.

[Izzy's Dad]

What are you asking? In layman's terms for us idiots. I don't have a clue what you are saying.

[3Bsnag]

The OP is talking about why catchers position their body to face home plate while blocking rather than positioning their body in line with the wild pitch.

The premise is to keep the ball in front of you, in the field of play. That positioning lessens the chance of the ball grazing the equipment headed to the backstop or bouncing off of a leg guard and now you have to chase towards a dugout. Runners are less likely to bolt and if they do, that is a regular angle throw for the catcher. Absolute worse case, it rebounds hard and a P, 3B, or 1B has an opportunity to help.

[CallingCadence14]

Just thinking outloud..the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line not a horse shoe or a smiley face.Yet we teach Catchers to round out..doesnt make sense.Tryin to figure out if this is just to be.We know there are different ways to skin a cat.

[3Bsnag]

Just thinking outloud..the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line not a horse shoe or a smiley face.Yet we teach Catchers to round out..doesnt make sense.Tryin to figure out if this is just to be.We know there are different ways to skin a cat.

True. Mine tries the half circle thing (when she does block ) because Nuveman told her to on a video and her catching coaches explained those reasons why.

I've never paid attention to what the college catchers really do.

[Coach11]

Why do people teach rounding wild pitches blocking them toward home plate?Is a straight line quicker and blocking towards the infield to see the runners better?Just curious,I see it tought the rounding in a smiley face all the time and although it looks right why does it seem wrong?
Probability of rounding the ball on a wild pitch in the dirt and actually dropping and blocking,instead of straight line cut off and dropping to block towards the infield has got to be easier.Please someone help me out here.

You want the catcher to keep the ball in front of her. "Rounding it up" does exactly that. If she can't get her glove on it, but can get another body part in front of it, the ball should remain within her control.

Moving in a straight line to either the right or left, may just deflect the ball off to the side.

[CallingCadence14]

O.K. so you are saying you can go around a ball faster(remember a wild pitch) instead of taking a straight line approach to cut it off,and block it forward towards the infield? So instead of drawing a straight line and deflecting/blocking towards the infield you want to take the long route? This isn't scientificly sound. Draw a dot ,that would be you, now draw another dot i.e being the pitcher .Now from the pitchers dot draw a line in the general direction to you.Draw a half circle from you now to angle off the pitch. Now draw a straight line to angle off the pitch. Do not draw a straight line to the pitch rather then cut it off.Which is shorter???

[CallingCadence14]

The more I put it on paper the more I realize it isn't the route rather then the angle of the blockers body.So if the the blocker/catcher was to angle her deflection but take a straight line she would be quicker to the ball.

[Coach11]

The more I put it on paper the more I realize it isn't the route rather then the angle of the blockers body.So if the the blocker/catcher was to angle her deflection but take a straight line she would be quicker to the ball.

Perhaps.....but rounding the ball helps to soften the deflection.

Think of a goal tender and the route they take when defending a goal. Semicircle AWAY from the net, so that if they are unable to control it initially, it deflects out away rather than right back in front of them.

You'd want just the opposite were you trying to keep it near by if you couldn't gather it initially.

[simmerdown]

I think I will keep teaching smiley faces(blocking), you can just keep your Ricocheting!