One of the toughest things to teach young catchers is not to use their glove for catching when they block. Its only purpose is to plug the whole between your legs.
Young catchers must be taught at an early age to block the low pitches and not always try to “pick” them with a quick glove.
One way to help introduce this skill is to be sure that when you work on their blocking that you make sure that their hands are the first thing that move. Since their throwing hand will be behind the glove it will actually move slightly before their glove. They will drive their hands to the ground between their legs as soon as they read that the ball would need to be blocked.
The glove stays down there and is not used to catch, deflect, or otherwise go after the ball. When done correctly the glove will be blocking the whole between their legs before their knees ever hit the ground.
I have attached a link to a great pic showing this. Notice the glove is on the ground and the knees have not even hit the ground yet. You can see the dirt flying up behind the player’s feet showing that his legs are driving down and back. His knees will land where his feet used to be.
This pitch was a 90+ fastball from a local HS pitcher. The blocked ball went dead about 18 inches in front of the catcher who then picked it up and picked off a guy at first.
http://www.catchingcamp.com/c3_lg.jpg
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