Backyard Pitching Practice
Make Your Own Practice Frame For Two Bucks
Would you like to pitch accurately and consistently with a 12-foot arc? Here's how I trained myself for just two dollars.
1. Buy two 1x2 8-foot slats at your local lumber store (mine cost 72 cents each).
2. Cut one of them to 4 feet (48 inches).
3. Nail or screw the 4-foot slat to the other (8-foot) slat with a six-inch overlap, for a total length of 11 1/2 feet. (You can make it longer if you want to sink it into the ground. Just be sure you have 11 1/2 feet above the ground.)
4. Be sure to drill starter holes for your nails or screws, or the thin boards will split.
5. Cut an 18-inch length from the scrap left from your first cut.
6. Nail or screw the 18-inch piece perpendicular to the top of your 11 1/2 foot board, making a capital T.
7. Add a base if you want (so it will stand alone), or find something to prop it. I used a lawn chair.
Put home plate about five feet from a corner of the yard, and pitch to the corner. The balls that don't land in the milk crate will bounce against the fence and roll to the corner, so you won't have to chase them all over the yard.
Your pitching rubber should be 50 feet from home plate, and your pitching frame should be exactly halfway between home plate and the pitching rubber - 25 feet from each.
Pitch your softballs over the top of the frame and into the milk crate. (You should have a heavy weight, like a couple of bricks, in the crate to prevent it from bouncing around when the balls hit it.)
P.S. Thanks to my wife Kathy, who took that action shot of the ball going over the top of the frame as I was pitching.
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© 2009 Dan
Hughes