When going ‘belly up’ is a good thing

When the MLB Youth Development team and MOJO, the award-winning youth sports startup, came together to collaborate on an introductory baseball and softball curriculum for grassroots coaches, the goal was twofold: to make practice fun, and to keep kids in the game.

The curriculum launched in the MOJO app in February of this year. The training videos and practice plans -- with videos shot at Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Fla. -- help baseball and softball coaches alike instill the core bat, ball and glove skills kids need to grow as players.

The games provide the structure; the fun is the glue.

Take, for example, Belly Up -- a fielding drill that’s ideal for beginners, including the Level 1 players that Bennett Shields is coaching this spring.

Shields is MLB's senior manager, baseball & softball development, and he was integral to developing the app-based curriculum. He’s also a volunteer rec softball coach -- and commissioner -- with the Packanack Lake Athletic Association in Wayne, N.J., and he’s putting the MOJO app to work.

Belly Up is a good way to get a feel for where 5-, 6- and 7-year-old players are, comfort-wise, with throwing, hand-eye coordination and athletic ability, said Shields.

But it’s also bigger than that.

It’s fun.

“Fun is an important keystone to what our department is trying to do for baseball,” said Shields. “If we’re not having fun with them -- if we’re not allowing them to be kids at practice -- they’re not going to want to come back to the next practice, the next season, the next year.”

To see more of the baseball and softball curriculum from MLB, download the MOJO app.

Team MOJO takes youth sports coaching seriously -- but not too seriously. Follow them on YouTube.