Your Youth Camps/Clinics

There is a camp Called Mark Cresse school of baseball in So Cal and I feel they have a pretty good idea of how to run a camp. When I run my camps I do it in the same manner minus the afternoon sessions. Players are from ages 5 - 12 all at the same camp and the are broken up by age groups. Little kids you incrediballs.

Morning Session (After stretching and catch the session lasts 2 hours. Groups last about 6-8 minutes with groups rotating and some water breaks mixed in.)

Stretch
Throwing program
10 stations
2 Baserunning stations
Infield
Outfield
Line Relays
Run Downs
Tee Stations
Sliding Station
Zing Bat station
Bunting Group

Afternoon Session
Camp broken into 3 stations @45 minutes
Hitting
Infield
Pitching/Catching

All campers must attend hitting and infield. They then have their choice of going to catching or pitching. As the camp progresses they mix in games in the afternoons with the rule that a player must have gone to pitching or catching to play that position.

I have ran a camp the last three years for youth league age children on a youth league field. I will actually run two camps this year, but will have to use a high school field. How do you think I should deal with the larger field concerning base paths, distance from mound to home, etc...

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I will actually run two camps this year, but will have to use a high school field. How do you think I should deal with the larger field concerning base paths, distance from mound to home, etc...

At our high school camps, we would set up "throw-down" bases out in the outfield to make shorter fields as well as we would go over to the softball field right across the street and play games there too. The only thing we do on the infield itself is ground balls for infield and that was all "big group" activity so the size of the field didn't matter-- we just needed dirt to roll ground balls on between partners.

When I have little guys on the 'big' field I put the bases way out in left field so they can hit home runs occaionally over the 'big' fence. Sometimes they even hit the scoreboard and they think that is Awesome!

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I put the bases way out in left field so they can hit home runs occaionally over the 'big' fence. Sometimes they even hit the scoreboard and they think that is Awesome!

Exactly. If they have fun, they'll want to do it more and more. And that will make them want to learn the game

We do the same thing here.. put the bases out there in the outfield so they can hit a few out. Last year, we set up in right field with the bases set up so that the "right field fence" was the 1st base line fence (4ft tall) and the "left field fence" was the outfield fence (8ft tall?)

Also, at a college camp I went to a few years ago, we had a home run derby using tennis balls and we hit from the outfield. The little kids they would move closer to the fence and then the few high schoolers at the camp would be closer to the infield.