Fear when in the batters box

[HITTING COACH]

How do you tell a team of 10u girls to get over the understandable fear of being hit with the ball?

so you can get to the business of hitting the ball..

 

[quincy]

Reps and more reps.

Hopefully get parents involved.

DD hand was broke, she jumped out of the box every pitch. She started bunting, worked for us.

 

[HITTING COACH]

yeah that is what I was thinking...but my DD does not have the same problem currently. We had a long talk and I told her to overcome that fear or she would not play softball for much longer as the game would not be fun, you know living in fear.

so she is doing very well I just need the rest of the team to do the same.

do I give them the same hard line talk?

 

[quincy]

Just from past experience, bunt.

It is hard to jump out.

 

[HITTING COACH]

sounds good thanks

 

[Ken Krause]

Try having them take batting practice (front toss) with wiffle balls. Then start intermixing wiffle balls and regular balls.

 

[Romwoens01]

Throw a bucket of wiffle balls at them in rapid fire speed. Have them just stand there. Throw some over the plate, at there legs, body helmet. It helps get the jitters out.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[625ender]

Circle up all the girls. Ask them how many have been hit by a pitch. Point out that every girl holding her hand up is here on the field and perfectly fine, so nothing to worry about.

 

[julray]

First question is... how do you know they are afraid of being hit by the ball? Is it something they are doing during their swing?

 

[BrianTx01]

I am thinking about having my DD stand on a 2x4 and have the pitcher use soft training balls. She is an advanced 8U league that is part coach pitch and part kid pitch. Against the coach pitcher she stays put and swings well. Against the kid pitcher she backs up every pitch...even if it is going the other way. The funny thing she has been hit by pitches before and she told me it really didn't hurt. It isn't like these 8U pitchers are throwing fireballs.