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Click here to see the video: Baseball Infield: How To Play Third Base

Coach Duke Baxter: Now I'm talking to you third basemen out there. What we're talking about is the proper placement and where you should be on the field. A lot of times, you'll go to a Little League game and you will see the third baseman standing on third base, like this. When we're playing third base, we don't stand on the base. This decreases our odds of catching the ball. Anything to my right is foul, and I only have a small area to cover.

So, one of the things we're going to talk about is a neutral position. What we're going to do is we're going to stand on the base, take three steps out and two steps back. Now, this is a good neutral position when I'm playing third base.

For you advanced third basemen out there, now we would look at whether he's a right-handed hitter or a left-handed hitter, if we're throwing a hard pitcher or a soft pitcher. That will dictate what else we have. For example, I have a right-handed batter up, a lot of times they like to pull the ball – what I would do is take one step to my right. If I have a hard throwing pitcher, a lot of times the hitter will hit the ball opposite field – I would then take two steps to my left. This increases my odds of the ball being hit to me.

If I stay in the same spot all the time, the balls are going to be hitting different spots. So, I want to try to position myself to where I think that batter is going to hit the ball. So, I could be moving from batter to batter to different positions.

If we have the lead-off batter, a lot of times he may bunt. If he does bunt, I'm then going to get even with the base and take two steps forward. On a lead-off batter, this may be my positioning. So, when I'm playing third base, again, my neutral position is: I stand on the base, three steps out, and two steps back. This is a good neutral position for you third basemen.