Baserunning: Leads, Steals, Sliding and More By Mike Roberts, Tim Bishop

Smart, aggressive baserunning will change a game, a series, and even a season. It sets the philosophy and mind-set of the coaches, trainers, and players. It becomes instinctual and contagious. It translates to pressure and, most important, wins.

Baserunning is the most complete and authoritative guide on this critical yet often-overlooked offensive skill. You’ll go inside today's game to learn the techniques and strategies for ruling the basepaths. Discover the secrets to leading off, detecting pick-off attempts, improving first-step speed, avoiding tags, and determining the best counts and situations for success in stealing bases.

But the art of baserunning is more than just speed and swiping bags - it is effortlessly and efficiently rounding the bases, taking the extra base, tagging up, reading defensive positioning, scouting strengths and weakness, forcing errors, and ultimately scoring runs. Only Baserunning covers it all.

With major league advice, skill assessment, the best player and team drills, expert instruction, detailed photo sequences, and proven exercises and routines for speed, agility, and quickness, Baserunning is a must-have for every coach, player, and student of the game.


Contents

Part I Basepath Fundamentals
Chapter 1 More Than Speed
Chapter 2 Sliding
Chapter 3 Leading Off

Part II Running the Bases
Chapter 4 Breaking From the Box
Chapter 5 Infield Grounders
Chapter 6 Outfield Flies

Part III Base Stealing
Chapter 7 Stealing Second Base
Chapter 8 Stealing Third Base
Chapter 9 Stealing Home
Chapter 10 Double Steal

Part IV Strength and Conditioning
Chapter 11 Developing Power
Chapter 12 Speed and Quickness
Chapter 13 Off-Season Conditioning

Released 2013
208 Pages


About The Authors

Mike Roberts is the business development manager at Athletes' Performance, where he directs baseball athlete relations and the sales of major league and minor league training programs. He is also the director of education for SmartKage Sports, a technology system that quantitatively measures athletic performance. A lifelong baseball coach, he is currently the head coach of the Cotuit Kettleers in the Cape Cod Collegiate Summer Baseball League. Roberts played professional baseball in the Kansas City Royals minor league system.

Roberts spent 23 seasons as head baseball coach at the University of North Carolina. Under his guidance, the team played in two College World Series championship series in Omaha and won five Atlantic Coast Conference Championships. Of his athletes, 14 have gone on to play in the major leagues, including two all-stars, B.J. Surhoff and Brian Roberts, one of the most successful base stealers in the majors. Additionally, five of his former players serve as head baseball coaches of Division I schools.

Tim Bishop owns and operates PerformFit Sports Experience, a sport performance and fitness facility, in Cockeysville, Maryland USA. He also creates strength and conditioning programs for Ripken Baseball’s summer camps and clinics. Bishop served as the strength and conditioning coach for the Baltimore Orioles for 14 years. He also played professional baseball for the New York Yankees and, as a two-sport star, took part in the NFL training camp in St. Louis.

Bishop has appeared on numerous television and radio stations to promote health, fitness, and sport performance training. He is a frequent contributor to Men’s Health, Maximum Fitness, and Men’s Fitness magazines. His training advice has appeared in New York Times, USA Today, and NSCA Journal. He has lectured on a variety of topics for the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society, National Strength and Conditioning Association, M-F Athletics, and various colleges and universities.