Better Hitting

begins by practicing when others aren't

1. How to get better at hitting

2. Play fall ball

3. Reading, a way to be better at hitting

4. A recommendation to help you be more aggressive

5. Website news

How to get better at hitting

Here it is --> practice when others aren't. Every time you're practicing and "they" (the kids that might be better than you) aren't, you have the possibility to pass them.

Fall and winter are the perfect times to work on your hitting. Most people just practice during season.

But think about this. If everyone does the same things, then for the most part, everyone will pretty much remain the same in relation to one another.

When I coach, I never cancel a practice due to rain. I just find a place with an overhang, set up the tee and net and get to work perfecting the swing.

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.

Play Fall Ball

Here's a tip you can try if you think you're too late in signing up to play.

Many leagues get started and many of the teams start off well, but some of their players lose interest, or go on vacation or some of them are even on two teams that have conflicting schedules. This will be a great opportunity for you.

Just go down to the fields where they are playing and have your playing gear with you ready to go. Just watch for teams that look like they're running short of players and ask if they need an extra. Most of them will be happy to have you help them not forfeit and you'll get your chance to play and work on game live pitching to hit off of.

Good Luck. The worst that can happen is you'll spend an hour or two checking out games.

But the best could be you get to play and get better.

Reading your way to better hitting

There are a number of books I've looked over at the local Barnes and Noble (and have in my own library) on getting better at hitting. Some of the classics, still stand the test of time: The Science of Hitting by Ted Williams, Dusty Baker's book on how to teach Hitting, Charlie Lau, Jr. has a new book out. His father was a big time hitting coach that had George Brett as his biggest disciple. Many of the good hitters wrote books, including Rod Carew, Cal Ripken, Tony Gywnn, and others.

If you go to Amazon.com or BN.com (barnesandnoble.com) and key in "hitting" or "baseball hitting" or "softball hitting" and you'll get a list that is full of books on hitting.

Have fun with any of those.

Last month I told you about a great resource, writings from Babe Ruth, where he described his beliefs about hitting, pitching, and playing the game itself. It's a great read and you can learn a lot.

For less than a cost of a lesson, you'll get many, many things that you'll learn from this great hitter and a whole lot more. To see about this Babe Ruth info, go here. For those of you who already got this, could you drop me a line as to how you liked it. I know I really enjoyed it, but I was curious about how others felt.

Be more aggressive to be a better hitter

However for some of you, you might not be able to be aggressive due to the fact that you're secretly (or maybe not so secretly) afraid of the ball smacking you in the face.

Sometimes our pride gets in the way of taking the steps we need to in order to be better at hitting or playing.

First it wasn't even cool to play with gloves, then batting helmets, then helmets with flaps.

Now we're into the stage where you can buy "cages" to add to the batting helmet (hard plastic bars that are spaces enough to not let a ball get to your face but thin enough to give you plenty of vision).

Once you put one of those on, see if you're not more aggressive up at the plate.

Out in the field, especially for pitchers, third and first basemen, but anywhere else too, or for anyone who's been hit before, there is a device that protects your face.

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.

Check them out here. Then go to the bottom for links to more information.

Web Site News

I want to help as many kids (adults) as I can. If you could help me by passing this newsletter on to your teammates or anyone you know that could use the help we're offering here, please forward this to them. Thanks in advance. Or if you'd like to post any of my information on your website, just e-mail me for permission and I'll be glad to get it to you in a format that will fit your site."

Don't forget to watch the play-offs and the series. Great baseball and great baseball hitting for you to watch in helping you to have better hitting and be a better all around player.

To those of you who are interested in the background of creating a website and a newsletter like I've done, or you have a website, or your work has one (or is considering one) the remainder of the newsletter has a couple of cool links for you. For the rest of you, I'll save you reading on and see you next month.

There are two things I think you'd like to know about. One is a handy little tool that tells where your website ranks in relation to the other 4 - 6 million websites. You may find this interesting if you want to know where yours ranks (mine is in the top 10%) or the one at work or that competitor of yours!

Go here to see what that website ranks and how you can increase it. (Hint: it's at the bottom of the page).

If you're a person who's wondering how to do this "internet marketing thing", there's a great resource that used to cost $97 but is now given away free due to the author making some shady business dealings and one of his former retailers getting mad at him and now gives his book away for free. (He bought the rights to resell it at whatever price he wanted to sell it for, so now he chooses to sell it for free).

The book is really good regardless of how the author acted after he wrote the book. He was able to get a lot of the best marketers on the Internet to tell what they would do if they were starting up all over again and needed to get it up in 30 days. What they would do, day by day, from day 1 through day 30. There are some terrific insights in here. I got my copy and really enjoy it. I'm especially trying to work on Phil Wiley's recommendations as he presents them in the book. So look for more pages on my website containing specific products and recommendations as they pertain to hitting in the future.

Go here, before he removes the website.

Well that's what I have for you. I trust you learned a lot or re-learned.

Talk to you next time.