8U DD Won't Keep Her Eyes On The Ball

[CobraAssist]

You know what I tell them when they do that? I always ask them, "what are you looking at me for? I'm ugly. Look at the pretty yellow ball." And, while I understand losing site of the ball when it's coming at 66 MPH from 35 ft. away, when it's only coming at 33 MPH, I don't think that really applies.

 

[Jim]

There is a drill that will keep her focus into the hitting zone that I do with professional hitters.

Have her hit as usual but right after she hits the ball she needs to show you, with her bat, exactly where the pitch was when her bat and ball made contact. Have her show you the position that she was in with her swing, bat everything at contact. It is important that you stress to her that she is to be precise with showing you the contact point of the ball and bat (height, in/out, etc.).

What usually happens is this... The first few that she tries to show you, her bat will be about six inches higher than where you saw her contact the ball. This is because her eyes cut off mid pitch and the height that she remembers the ball being at is a bit higher than actual contact. She will get better and better and she will then be exact with where contact happened.

It's a great way to bring their mind and attention to the ball and the hitting zone vs. where they want the ball to fly after they hit it.

If in her mind the "main goal" is to show you exactly where the pitch was instead of her "goal" being where the ball flies, she will improve her look at the pitch.

Another drill I do is similar to the number drill, however I don't use numbers. I toss either a "four seemed grip" on the ball or a "two seemed grip" on the ball, and I have the hitter tell me what it was after they hit it. Once they get pretty good at it, I still toss both grips but I have them hit only the "four seemed grip" pitches.

 

[CobraAssist]

Thanks for all the input guys. We went to the cages last night after I got off of work. We actually did a mixture of the number drill and the two tee drill. I put a tee out in front of her about 10 feet and made her focus there. I sat in a chair next to her with about five balls that had numbers on them (one of them was 1,729 just to mess with her...and boy was that funny). I would keep changing the balls, and she'd scream out the numbers. Once she got the real feel of that shoulder to shoulder movement of her head, we did some softtoss, and then some live pitching (again, me pitching to her probably around 35 mph). She missed 2 pitches (resulting in 2 pushups...a deal her and I made) out of two buckets. She hit some good, and some bad (I wasn't expecting Jessica Mendoza after one session, I promise) but overall, her focus was much better. Now, I get to sit here at work and wait on phone calls from mom on how she's doing today in her tourney. Gotta pay for all this stuff somehow right?