Backyard Pitching Practice
By Dan Hughes
Here's a great way to practice pitching.
Put a home plate and pitcher's mound in your back yard, 50 feet
apart or whatever the distance is in your league. Set a target
bucket behind the plate. An old milk crate works fine.
Exactly halfway between home plate and the mound, set up a "barrier"
of some sort that is 9 feet high (assuming you have a 10-foot
limit).
Mine is pretty claptrappity. I attached a one-foot plastic rod to the end of
an 8-foot 2x2 stud, and then I attached an old windshield wiper to
the top of the rod, perpendicular to the rod, so I had an 11-foot
long "capitol T." Finally, I used some lawn furniture and a
heavy toolbox to stand it up straight.
I aim at the bucket behind home plate, being sure the pitch goes
over the wiper blade, barely clearing it. This gives me
excellent practice at throwing 10-foot-high pitches.
This thing cost me about two bucks to make (the price of a 2x2), and
it gives me an excellent pitching-practice workout.
© 2007 Dan Hughes