Better Hitting

Using Pitch Counts and Oranges

1. Thoughts from the World Series Using Pitch Counts to be better at hitting

2. A Hitting Shirt

3. Past Links

4. Using an Orange to be better at hitting ??

Using Pitch Counts

I'm surprised at the number of 1st pitches that were balls and not strikes. If you're a stat freak like I am you might find this writer's views on this very topic entertaining and enlightening. The writer talks about the importance of the 1st pitch being a strike and the impact it has on the overall chance of a hitter getting a hit.

To read the full article, follow this link. The following advice works for slo-pitch hitting, fastpitch hitting and baseball hitting.

The observations I made and the article seem to bear out that good hitters help themselves by not swinging at balls and when the pitcher doesn't place it where they want to the good hitter makes the pitcher pay.

So it's important to know how to hit pitches that are pitching mistakes well. Pitchers will normally throw more mistakes when they are behind in the count because they don't want to get closer to waling the batter so they can't take a chance of throwing right on the corners.

The best counts to do this type of hitting are called hitter's counts, generally 2 balls and 0 strikes and 3 balls and 1 strike (3-0 can also be a hitter's count, but many times the coach will not want you swinging at the pitch to try to get the walk).

To be a good hitter you need to know what types of pitches and their locations are and when you get to hitting counts, look to get those pitches you really like and belt them.

If you want the right steps to practice and you haven't received them before (or if you've lost them and want to review) go here for your free hitting lessons via e-mail.

Hitting Shirt

You like wearing (or you'd like to wear) shirts that tell of your love for softball. But now you can do that and help your hitting at the same time with this cool hitting shirt.

I designed this shirt so you can always have the hitting steps right on your hitting shirt. The 7 steps will be right there ready for you to remember. They are written upside down so you can read them yourself while you're practicing.

To find out how you can get one for your very own, go here.

Links

The first is a great resource, writings from Babe Ruth around 1928, where he described his beliefs about hitting, pitching, and playing the game itself. It's a great read and you can learn a lot. To see about this Babe Ruth info, go here.

The second is the device that's designed to protect your face from line drives and bad hops. It's called Game Face. I have to admit they look a little dorky, but we're talking about protecting the only face (and possible eye sight) we have and we just might be better players and be more aggressive out in the field if we wore one of these.

For the Olympic Girl's hitting statistics they're here.

I included a hitting game on my website, it's a search-a-word game.

I've added the ability to accept credit cards now for those interested in the Phil Bruder hitting CD.

I also had a couple of links for people who were interested in websites. To see how your website ranks and how to increase traffic there's this link for website traffic. (Hint: it's at the bottom of the page).

Another link goes to a free book describing how to set up an internet business in 30 days or less. Go here, before he removes the website.

If you're still interested in going back to back issues use this.

Hitting an Orange

It helps them focus and concentrate, because a perfectly executed swing will smash the orange the best, making the most mess, which is what they think is so cool. But they only get one, so they really need to deliver the perfect swing, because any hit to the ball (orange) will destroy it, but not all of them will explode the way they want it to.

I found another side benefit, when I pitched the orange to one of my students. She actually let it go by. When I asked her why, she said "because I wanted to get a pitch that I could really smash it on."

That's the way we should all be viewing our swings, at least before we get two strikes. Why swing at something we can't smash?

Think about that for a while and you'll be a better hitter. Use an orange next time and see if it might just help you too.

Welcome to you who are new to my hitting e-zine.

Thanks again for all of you who read this newsletter. If you find it of value, could you please pass it on to someone you can think of right now?

Talk to you next time.