Can you teach "hustle"?

I think so. Hustle is a frame of mind --------- a desire to accomplish and is not baseball specific. It’s really more than getting from point “A” to point “B” in a short amount of time. While hustle appears as a physical activity it is pure mental. In order to have a team that hustles one needs a coach that has the ability to encourage hustle in his players. Look and listen to a good sales motivational speaker. They have the ability to teach hustle.
Players are different too. Some players require less motivation than others to maximize their “hustle”. They are your self motivators. Good coaches recognize this “hustle” trait in players and I’m sure they view this as a plus when selecting players. It takes more than hustle to win. The player may be able to get to point “B” in record time but he also has to execute when he gets there.
Fungo

Hustle is part of passion for the game. It comes naturally to some. To others, they have to be told if they don't hustle someone who does will eventually beat them out. There will be a point where talent isn't enough. Everyone left standing will have talent. The men will be separated from the boys by passion (hustle), work ethic and the mental aspects of the game.

It may be that the majors teams your losing to have just played a heck of a lot more games than yours have. around here the good majors teams have neen playing 100+ games a year...some since they were 7U.
They aslo recruit from a wider area typically and attract the top talent.
So they have more expereince in game situations and are more likely to know the backups and cuts, etc., instinctivly

quote:

Originally posted by Brian Shanberg:
Focusing this discussion on hustle. Can that be taught?

I think so. Most definitely. Are you doing anything currently to encourage them to hustle? If so, what are you doing to reinforce it? For example:

- Do you teach them to sprint on and off the field between innings?

- When they're hitting, do you teach them to run back to the dugout after they ground out or strike out?

- Do you tell them to run through 1B as hard as they can regardless of where the ball is hit?

- Do your catchers trail the runner going down to 1B?

- Do your SS/2B back up the throws from the C to the P?

- Do you teach each position how to be a back up throws on various plays?

- Do you teach your OF and IF who has priority over who on fly balls and to go get it until they're called off?

- Do you teach your OF how to throw to the cutoff and do you teach the IF how to cut and relay?

- If you are teaching these things and others, how do you reinforce them? Are you constantly reminding them verbally? Do they have to run poles (or something) for not executing properly?

Those are some things that come to mind.

Great points.
We do verbally reinforce the points listed by Beezer. In practice and in game. But, it seems to go in one ear and out the other.
We don't do much running. I think its time we increased the running. Our best two players hustle really well and don't have be told anything twice. The rest of the team has to constantly be reminded to run on and off the field, backup throws, etc.
But, those two really talented kids came to the team with the talent they have. We aren't responsible for their talent or hustle.
My challenge is to get the rest of the team to that level. My concern is that I'm not having much success.
I may resort to some type of peer discipline. (One kid screws up, the entire team runs a lap.)
One of the psychological issues I'm dealing with is that most of these kids are very affluent. They didn't come to the game 'hungry'. They could likely careless about being on a travel baseball team and they take it for granted. If they quit, their dads will just pay to put them on another local travel team.
If I push too hard with the running, I'm likely to lose some of them. But, sometimes I wonder if it would be more rewarding to have a team of average ability kids that gave 110% and didn't win as much over a bunch of talented kids that refused to give their all.

So, I have some things to sort out, but I think I need to start running a little more to reinforce the hustle.

quote:

Originally posted by Brian Shanberg:
So, I have some things to sort out, but I think I need to start running a little more to reinforce the hustle.

A game on the bench might serve as a nice little "reminder" as well.

Ultimately I think the bench is the best way to teach hustle, so I agree with some of the previous posts.

I currently help coach a U12 team that is a full time tournament team. One of the greatest hinderances to teaching hustle in my opinion is Johnny's parents. To me there are lessons more important to teach a boy or young man while having fun playing baseball.

A lot of parents really have a problem when you have their kid sit because they did not run out a pop up or run after a ball over their head.

We never pull a kid out in the middle of an inning but we certainly do between innings if they are being lazy or poor teammates.

The challenge is to have a big enough roster at the younger ages to enforce hustle and discipline. Too many parents only want to play on a team with 11 players. Between injuries and family time you are stuck playing with 9 kids all weekend. One of the very first questions is how many boys will you be taking?

Bottom line is reducing their playing time will work if they really want and love to play baseball.

Coaches really should make the first example that of their own kid when he decides not to play hard too.


Bill

Some kids hustle and some don't just like some want to take a lot more BP and groundballs than others.

Unfortunatly baseball rewards talent more than hustle or the big leagues would be filled with more David Eacksteins.

I try my best to teach my kids that when the ball is in play that there is place to be moving to. If they all do it, man, they look like a team full of hustle.

I know I'm posting a little late but a couple of things came to mind from when my son was this age...

He started with a great coach when he was 11 who drilled those kids every moment of every practice but made it a competition and as such, hustle began to come naturally as they wanted to win. Practice was not an all inclusive thing - they might work on one specific area during a practice, so for example, they might do defensive drills and never touch a bat during that day

Examples:
1. throwing lines - sometimes like playing catch but turn and throw, sometimes taking the catch standing sidewises like a cut-off throw and at all times it was a race between the two or three lines with the winners earning points or not having to do the next throw or not having to run a lap

2. throwing circles - throw one direction until yelled to change directions to keep concentration, catch the ball and drop to practice picking it up and making accurate throw to work on when you make an error ("you have time" coach would keep repeating as this drill went on). Again, teams competed against each other during the drill.

3. running - Running to first and watching coach about whether to run through or turn to 2nd; timing with stop watch as they ran through 1st and then seeing if they could beat their time; line and coach would "pitch" and they had to decide whether to go back or run across field to practice watching pick-off moves (after some drills, started the game like simon says with the winner getting a reward)

Running on and off the field was expected and consequences followed if even one player failed to do so (although, now that my son is a pitcher in college...he makes a point of doing a deliberate walk on and off the mound...has more to do with telling the other team he is in charge, I think

4. Backing up plays/cut-off drills - including the double cut with first running to cover 2nd and 2nd or short trailing the outfield. And they drilled back-up plays with the entire field/every player learning their responsibility of where to move depending on where the ball was hit with how many outs and where runners were on base

5. Consequences - the team knew there were consequences for "losing" such as running or being the team that had to pick up after practice and carry equipment to the cars. We also knew when they did something in the dugout cause even during games you would see everyone but the batter and person on deck take off running to some spot at the complex and back.

This was all done with the coach never cursing, raising his voice or cutting down a player.
In all the years my son was with this coach, he never asked anyone to leave...they left on their own if they didn't like the expectations.
I know that it was this early instruction that helped to mold the mindset my son has now.

Hustle is not taught. Its motivated.

Backing up throws, hitting the cutoff man and looking for double plays are not necessarily hustling issues. They seem more about baseball fundementals that can and should be taught.

I agree with fillsfan. Hustle is Head and Heart. The two most important tools of a ballplayer. There is always talk about the skillset (5 tools).

However the skillset fails to improve at certain ages once the head and heart loses drive to improve.

You don't teach hustle. You tell them they have to hustle to play the game right. Some get it, others don't.

The ol saying hasn't change:

The cheapest commodity in Baseball is hustle.