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PopUp Quiz with Quips 'n' Quotes from this site.

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For a most thorough site on hitting a baseball, visit The Hitting Academy, HeavyHitter.com and/or Be A Better Hitter.

     Batting, hitting, whatever you call it, requires practice to learn properly.  Certainly you will see varying amounts of natural ability at the plate, but those who practice to improve the mechanics of swinging a bat at a pitched ball are usually those with the higher batting averages.  Batting coaches, even the great Ted Williams, say that if a batter is hitting, don't waste time telling him what he's doing wrong.  When a hitter is not hitting it's wise to analyze his swing.  Oftentimes when a hitter is in a slump the batting coach will recommend something unusual to correct his timing.  So, when you see a batter with a ridiculously opened stance, or one that lifts his leg up like Mel Ott, or holds his bat at an inefficient angle like Hank Greenberg, don't be too quick to adopt the style.  It's not the stance that counts, but the swing.  In this day and age of computer technology it is possible to examine the human body and it's most efficient movements for swinging a bat with power and accuracy.  Take advantage of that.  See what we have listed as the mechanics of a good swing on the Basics page, and learn to improve your ability to make contact with the ball.  Take a good look at batters with unusual movements or an odd stance and you'll see that when the ball approaches the plate they all revert to the proper mechanics of a good swing.  From the launch position through the contact it is the laws of physics that dictate what works.  It's not "what works for me."  Just because you happened to get a double once when your top hand fell off the bat, it's not a good idea to think you're a better hitter when you only use one hand.  
     Video taping your swing from different angles is a good way to see what you are doing right, and what part of your mechanics needs improvement.  In an article on HittingAcademy.com Todd Wilkinson, head coach at Barton College, talks about athletic posture, the stance of the athlete in any game situation. Every sport, they say, has a different athletic posture. We can use the term athletic posture to describe any position throughout a given movement, like every freeze frame of the batting movement, the swing. You can have a style with your bat flying high or your leg flying high or whatever. But, when you make contact with the ball you have to have the proper athletic posture, so why not learn it from stance thru swing to contact.
     At contact, the hands should be in a palm-up/palm-down position.  Start you swing with your hands 3 to 8 inches from your back shoulder, with the bottom hand at the top of the strike zone.  If you start with your hands too far away from your body, the bat will take an outside to inside path to the ball creating timing problems and loss of power.  Swing down and through the ball as if chopping down a tree.  The angle of your axe hitting the tree is the same as the bat hitting the ball.  When you chop down a tree you need to hit the trunk at an angle, not straight in like the path a saw would take, so remember not to dip your back shoulder.  If you take a level swing at the ball, it takes too long for the bat to reach the front of the plate.  When we talk about swinging the bat like an ax, we don't mean to chop at the ball.  That would be bringing the top hand into the mechanics too early causing the bat head to hit down on the ball.  When chopping a tree you wouldn't roll your top hand; that would make you hit the tree with the flat side of the ax.  
     Another problem that sometimes occurs is what is known as "casting," which is pushing your back arm out a bit from your body as you swing.  You may start with your hands in the perfect position, and all of your other mechanics and timing seem right, but still you're swinging late or making erratic contact.  Check your casting.  Pull the knob of the bat to the inside of the ball.  Keep your hands inside the ball even on inside pitches.
     Wooden bats.  That's what baseball is played with.  Did you know the sweet spot of a metal bat is more than five times greater than that of a wood bat?  I recommend practicing with a wooden bat.  It doesn't hurt to get good at it.  Imagine how much better you will get with the easier metal bat in a game when you've honed your skills in practice with the more difficult wooden bat.

Things to remember:

Hitting Drills:  (for bunting drills see here) A great hitting stations drill is on WebBall™ here.

~ Swing from the fence ~

     First, distance yourself from a fence or wall by placing the top of your bat against it, with the bottom of the bat resting on your belly.  From there, take a normal stance parallel with the fence.  Start by  slowly taking a  practice swing.  You should not hit the fence with the bat.  Eventually work up to taking your full swing.  The idea of this drill is to teach you to throw your hands out first.  If the proper swing sequence is followed, you will not hit the fence.  The size of the bat does not matter since any difference in size will force a difference in distance from the fence (or from the print in this case).

~ Soft Toss Variations~

     Soft toss practice can be greatly varied, and benefit the hitter in many different ways.  First of all, here is a photo of what a normal soft toss session would look like.  For variation, try having the coach set up behind the batter, further back than where the catcher would be, and toss pitches from there.  The batter of course would look out towards the mound while waiting for each pitch.  Another great option is to use wiffled golf balls.  The golf balls can be pitched from the usual spot, or in front of the batter about 20-25 feet.  Another technique is to simultaneously toss two balls of different size or different colors and call out which one the batter should hit.  For fastball/curveball training, bounce the balls in the batter's strike zone and yell "fast" or "curve" on each toss.  The batter should swing on the way up for a fastball, and on the way down for a curveball. These variations will help develop bat speed, hand-eye coordination and pitch discrimination.   

~ Golf Foursome ~

     Divide the team into groups of 4 or 5.  Two or three fielders, a pitcher and a batter in each group.  The batter should use a shortened broom handle, and the pitcher throws wiffled golf balls.  All players rotate positions when the coach yells "Rotate!", giving everyone a turn at bat.  Coaches can keep score for the groups.  Scoring:  10 points for each line drive caught, 5 points for each fly caught, and 1 point for each grounder.

~ Tee Drills ~

     There are many drills using a tee.  Often the first reaction from a player who's not in tee ball any longer is to say that hitting off a tee is for beginners.  Well, if they would check any major league practice facility, they would find batting tees, and they're not just for the rookies.  With a tee you could practice hitting any location of the strike zone without having to wait for a pitcher to throw it there for you.  One way to use a tee is to set it up at various points of the strike zone, and have the coach feed a bucket of balls onto the tee as you hit them into a net.  Another use for the tee is to place the ball with the small seams (actually the narrowest part of the seam) perpendicular to the ground, facing the catcher.  Then concentrate on hitting the seam nearest you first.  This will focus your attention on hitting the inside of the ball.  A good two-tee drill to correct for a flat swing is to place the second tee in front of and higher than the target tee.  This will force you to swing properly to hit the ball.

~ A Place-Hitting Game ~

     You know the usual coach-toss BP where everyone gets bored?  We all know it's a necessary evil to shag balls for the team when batting practice is the only way to get better hitters.  One way of making it more fun is to give each player a set number of pitches.  The first half the batter is told to hit to his pull side of the field; the second half to the opposite side.  The drill is designed to improve the batter's ability to hit to the opposite field.  It will also help the coaches know which batters to use for the hit-and-run and other important offensive situations. 

 Baseball builds character; be part of the construction crew.

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