Monday, April 28, 2008
Teaching Hitting
I agree that the hardest thing to do in sports is hit a baseball. The question is, is there a good way to teach hitting? I'm an assistant coach on my eight year-old's team, and some of the kids swing the bat better than others. Is there a good, somewhat easy way to teach hitting? If there is, please post and share it with me.
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3 comments:
The only thing harder than hitting a baseball is teaching someone to hit a baseball. I have nine year-olds in the first full year of kid pitch. I am trying to teach them not to swing at pitches they can’t reach!
There are obvious talent differences among your 8 year-olds. The weaker ones need to develop hand-eye coordination. Use a tee, even if you are in a coach-pitch or beginning kid pitch league. This will help them build confidence, and you can teach them a basic stance and swing. Also, do like the big-leaguers do, and toss pitches from the side, so they get used to hitting something moving. Do these in addition to whatever batting practice you have for the whole team. If you run your practices with different stations to keep the kids interested, a batting tee and toss station can be set up into the backstop or another tall fence while you are teaching other things to others.
For the better players, you’ll not in coaching books that they way hitting is taught has changed since we were kids. We were taught to step into the pitch. If you see major leaguers’ swings now, there are only a few (Ichiro, and formerly Paul Molitor – or see film of Richie Ashburn – as examples) who actually move laterally into the ball. It is now more rotational energy. We also were taught to keep our back elbow high. This is no longer the orthodoxy. I would recommend getting a book or two on hitting to teach this. The hardest ones are the good athletes who hit the ball well despite having an awful swing.
Mistakes to watch for:
~ Teach all of them, obviously, to watch the ball.
~ Make sure the bat isn’t too heavy for them.
~ Also try to discourage a big step with the front foot. Often, they end up bailing out like John Kruk against Randy Johnson. A small step works better for most kids anyhow.
~ Watch for the dancing back foot, too.
~ Make sure their grip is one that allows them to release the wrists through the ball.
Hope this helps.
TIGOBLUE
The only thing I can say to you is practice, practice everyday.
yes there's reason, some kids are better than other, is so simply
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