4.1 Rules of Thumb

• Talk to each other -- especially call for balls that you plan to catch, so that other teammates know where you are and don't collide with you. In 7 years of CfA softball, the only actual injury I saw was when our SS and LF underwent an inelastic collision on an ordinary shallow fly ball to short left-field; result = broken cheekbone for the SS (proving once again the real danger comes from other astronomers, not the ball). If you see a dangerous situation developing, you should call someone off even if you're not involved. The clearest way is to shout out the position name of the person who should continue to play the ball. Infielders should make sure each other understands what each intends to do, before the batter actually hits the ball to them (``if he hits it to you, I'll cover..."), and reminding each other where the force plays are.
• Keep the force play in order if possible: prevent the runner from advancing another base from where she wouldn't be forced. Life will be so much easier when the next batter comes up. The figures (a) - (g) reproduced below summarize where the force plays are for all possible base-occupation states (there's always a ``force" at 1B): occupied bases are black, and possible force plays have blue undershading.

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  A corollary: keep the ball in front of you. Sometimes it can be just as important to knock the ball down as it would be to field it cleanly.

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  And another: don't make unnecessary throws. Often holding the ball and running it in towards the middle of the diamond is just the thing to calm the situation. Also, space-like throws are, er, seldom possible -- no point in throwing if the play is not in the ball's forward light-cone.

• Technique tenets (below assume a right-handed person; reverse right/left for a left-hander

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  Catch balls on the fly with two hands: this doesn't mean let your right hand get in the way of the glove on your left hand, but rather use your right hand as a kind of a lid to keep the ball from popping out (especially for balls hit with lots of spin).

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  Step off from your back foot (right foot for right-handers) when throwing: the extra zip you can get on the ball will almost always make up for any added time you may require to get your balance/take an extra step to set your back foot properly (not to mention that the throw will probably go where you wanted it to, rather than a significant fraction of a radian off-line). ``Haste," as they say, ``makes waste."

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  Bend from both the waist and knees when fielding grounders: get your glove almost jammed into the ground (it's much easier to come up on the ball than go down) and keep your butt low.