Jason Pan in Chinese Taipei
After almost 2 years of work, the Chinese Taipei Baseball Assocation (CTBA) has developed a manual of basic skill training to improve game competitiveness and standard of play. Targeted for coaches who work in amateur leagues and school teams, the new manual is a guide on teaching the fundamentals of baseball to young players.
The manual comes with a DVD and is packed with 290 pages of photo-illustrated instructions, and has the goal of setting up a proper baseball skill training program. The manual covers most aspects of the game fundamentals and is divided into 10 sections: pitcher, catcher, infielder, outfielder, hitting, base running, physical training, sports injury and prevention, mental training, and nutrition.
The drawings show to coaches and players the proper ways of developing the basic skills of baseball. For example, the section on “infielder” gives lessons on catching grounders, side-way mobility, fielding and relaying, drills for double-play, and adjusting field positions in dealing with various game situations. The “physical training section” provides guidance on warm up, stretching, muscle strengthening, leg work exercise, and different sets of running drills.
Given the mandate by CTBA and the national sports council, the commitee responsible for this project is composed of experienced coaches and led by Lin Hua-Wei, a former skipper of Chinese Taipei national team at international tournaments.
Lin said, “Our standard of baseball playing has hit a bottleneck. We are falling further behind Japan and South Korea. Therefore changes must be made starting at the grassroots levels.”
He added, “With this training kit, we hope to get all amateur team coaches to train players in the proper way.
By improving their skills at the basic level, we expect to see good results (for Chinese Taipei) at major baseball tournaments within three to six years.”
According to CTBA secretary-general Richard Lin, the training manuals are made available to grade school teams, youth leagues and up to university level, as well as Taiwanese amateur league squads – and will be distributed to these more than 800 teams by the end of this month.
