Just because you can't round up another player doesn't mean you can't practice your baseball skills. Baseball as a sport requires at least nine players, but many of the skills, such as throwing, running and hitting, require individual and isolated performance. Gather a bucket of balls, a tee and some cones, and head to your local baseball diamond to hone your skills alone.
Batting Practice
Set up your tee on home plate, adjusting the height of the tee to a strike-zone level, between your knees and belly button. Place a ball on the tee and bat away, occasionally adjusting the height of the tee and the placement of the tee to practice hitting the ball to different field locations. Hitting off the tee helps you learn your rhythm and allows you to practice timing. Adjusting the tee's location allows you to practice hitting outside pitches, inside pitches, and high or low balls. You learn how to place the ball when you hit off the tee, aiming for different areas of the field.
Throwing Practice
To practice throwing alone, set up cones every 30 feet at 60-, 90-, 120-, 150- and 180-foot locations from your starting position. With your bucket of balls at your side, throw 10 balls to each cone, concentrating on accuracy and form. Do this exercise several times a week, and as your arm strengthens, throw more balls to each cone, eventually aiming to throw 125 to 150 total balls, or 25 to 30 balls to each cone. Stock up on balls so that you won't have to go collect them too many times in the middle of this drill.
Base Running and Sliding
You can practice baserunning, stealing and sliding by yourself. Warm up by running the bases five times slowly. Then, practice game situations: Pretend you hit the ball and you're trying to beat out the throw at first base, practice running doubles and triples, practice stealing and sliding into second. Each of these situations requires slightly different player reactions, so think through how you would actually respond in a game and act accordingly. For instance, if you want to practice stealing second, walk a few steps off of first, turn to face home plate and crouch in a ready position, wait a second, then take off at a sprint toward second base.
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