Baseball infielder crouches with glove low to field a ground ball beside a base on the infield.

Infielder Scooping a Grounder by the Base

A focused infielder stretches wide beside the base, glove open low as a ground ball skips across the dusty infield.

🎨 How to color it

Give the player’s jersey a deep navy, the cap brim a bright red, the glove a warm caramel brown, and the base a clean chalk white. Use sharp pencils around the glove laces, cap logo, shoe ties, and tiny pebbles, then switch to broader strokes for the open infield dirt. Try a pale gold dust shadow under the rolling ball so it looks like it just hopped toward the glove.

The story behind this coloring page

Dante and the Third-Base Whisper — Behind the left-field fence, Dante squeezed a cracked practice ball and waited for Coach Mina to hit one slow grounder his way. Read the full story →

Behind the left-field fence, Dante squeezed a cracked practice ball and waited for Coach Mina to hit one slow grounder his way. The empty infield smelled like sun-baked clay and cut grass, and the huge scoreboard made every little sound seem secret. When the ball tapped off the bat and rolled toward third, Dante stepped out from the shadow of the fence. His knees wobbled, but he kept moving. The ball bumped the corner of the base and made a hollow clink-clink, not a thud.

Dante could have tossed the ball back and said nothing. Instead, he crouched so low his glove brushed grit, and he lifted the edge of the loose base. Under it sat a tiny tin capsule, cold and dusty, where nobody ever looked. Inside was a strip of paper: FIRST BRAVE FIELDERS SIGN HERE. Names curled across it from years before, some faded brown as old leaves. Dante wrote his name with Coach Mina’s pencil, paid for it with clay on both knees, and slid the capsule back.

When the next grounder came, Dante ran to meet it. “I’m ready,” he called, and the infield answered with a soft clink-clink; if you trace the base line next time, you may hear the secret under third.