I grew up learning to catch whatever my dad threw at me. My mom never seemed interested in this sort of play too much.
When my little girl was young, I'd buy the softest balls that fit her hand at whatever age and we'd have hours of fun throwing the ball back and forth. We'd keep score and see how many times we could throw it to each other without either of us dropping it. I think the best result was somewhere around 100.
But, even though she's not very interested in balls and bats and stuff like that now, it's nice to know that if someone threw something her way and said, "Catch!" she probably could.