Thread: So how do you know that DD is close to hitting over the fence?

Just wondering how much longer before she gets her first over the fence homerun...she's really anticipating it. During practice in just the last week, she's hit 3 machine pitched balls over the fence. Not sure what that means when compared to softballs (the machine balls with dimples in them are kind of heavy but they are bouncier too). Told DD if and when she got her first one over the fence, I would get her her first pair of Oakleys for sports.

We'll see...oh yeah, and this is the kid that was booted off team last Fall for inconsistent hitting.

It sounds like she is there but be careful. If she keeps hitting it hard homeruns will come, if she is trying to hit homeruns be ready for some work in the cages without a fence out there.

I want DD to be able to hit one over the fence, not there yet but she can hit the ball to the fence does that count?

Good luck, it sounds like this year.

You don't want her swinging for the fence, or she is never going to make it. Just compliment her on what she is doing. Maybe set up a HR derby between you and her and set up some short fences, somehow. My kids had a sidewalk that they would try to hit it over.

I have to ask, though - is she using a composite bat with those machine balls?

My DD hits the regular softballs farther in the air, but the dimpled balls bounce farther once they hit the ground. I can tell you from experience, trying too hard to hit it over the fence with give them a looping swing. Make sure she is swinging for line drives and it will happen.

There was a time, here on this board, when the guy in this photo posted a series of drills.
This clip is from one of his drills.
Me and the kid have done this particular drill for almost 2 years.
She's done this drill far more than any other drill, by a country mile.
And around the same time, this guy
told us the details of how the swing should unfold.
He also told us that a hitter needs to fing their optimum swing effort percentage and that is never 100%.
He stressed that as a hitter reaches higher and higher up the effort percentage scale, you'll reach a point of diminishing returns. he said for some hitters it might be 60% efffort and others it might be 80 or 90% effort.
The hitter will figure out what % to swing by doing the drill Hitter and SL's daughter are doing.
We take this drill outside and she'll hit about 50 balls on a field where the fences are 285'.
Her goal is to someday hit it over. She knows she'll never do that if she exceeds her swing effort % max.
When she is going to hard/fast, she'll hit a lot of pulled groundballs. When she is dead on and her swing unlocks inperfect sequence, she'll hit booming/towering shots that one hop that 285' fence, usually gap to gap.
Perhaps Hitter, SL, SBFamily can give the details of this drill. The participants and her father have asked us not to post the drill video, so I won't. But they will help you out I'm sure.

Dd hits about 1 per bp over, and has hit 2 in games.

We don't hit dimpled balls, I have seen girls that don't hit well take them pretty far. Practice with tcb balls every bp, work on swinging fast. My dd would hit towering pop flys, then I kept telling her to try to hit the top bar of the pitching screen, thats when she got in the grove and hasn't come out.

Tim is right here especially as she moves up the competition scale.

A player should be taught (and practice) various ways to hit; not just line drives. They need to know how to hit ground balls. They need to know how to hit fly balls. They need to know how to pull a pitch, or hit to the opposite side.

I recently worked with a bigger, stronger kid that had never been taught to lift the ball. Less than an hour into practice she had already hit her first two, ever, over the fence. In the past few games she has hit three doubles to the gap walls.

If they don't know how to lift the ball, or put it down for a hot grounder, come game time it will be a crap shoot if either of those skills are not practiced. A coach calling for a sac fly, for example, will more than likely just get a pop up or something if it hasn't been taught or practiced.

One of the worst drills I see is kids hitting off a tee at a volleyball sitting on a tee in the pitchers circle. Then they wonder why the kids keep hitting one-hoppers back at the infield during the next game.