hitting fouls!

[GNice68]

Does hitting fouls to the 3rd base side indicate a late swing- or early?

 

[Coach Al]

Early, she is hitting the ball to far in front of the plate.

 

[SBFAMILY]

Why I like the whiphit as one of my tools. It would tell you the answer reall quick on a ? like Tewks posted.

 

[redhotcoach]

90% of the probs we have with 10 year olds is swinging too early. I must say "wait for it" about 25 times a day.

 

[Wellphyt]

My guess is that she's early. Some players have the ability to process information quicker than others. My daughter at 13 years old still has a hard time waiting on the ball. I swear it's her personality or how she's wired. I noticed during our last couple of times in the cages she is finally working on it and trying to figure it out.

One of the hardest things to get kids to understand is that it's OK to miss balls in the batting cage when you're working on stuff. My daughter has a real hard time with that concept.

 

[druer]

This is not at all uncommon among girls that grow up playing in the younger age groups where coaches constantly encourage "pulling everything" so that they can get the batter on base because the younger girls can't field and throw the ball all the way across the field.

Here are a couple of quick tips without changing any kind of mechanics:
1. If she is standing in the back of the box (towards umpire), move her to the very front of the box so she can keep her aggressiveness and keep the ball fair. Many girls just stand in the foot steps of the previous batters, and most girls are intimdated and stand in the back of the box because they can't handle the speed.
2. If she is crowding the plate, she's begging the pitchers to throw her inside so back her away from the plate so that she'll get a better mixture of pitches.

 

[Hitter]

This is not at all uncommon among girls that grow up playing in the younger age groups where coaches constantly encourage "pulling everything" so that they can get the batter on base because the younger girls can't field and throw the ball all the way across the field.

Here are a couple of quick tips without changing any kind of mechanics:
1. If she is standing in the back of the box (towards umpire), move her to the very front of the box so she can keep her aggressiveness and keep the ball fair. Many girls just stand in the foot steps of the previous batters, and most girls are intimdated and stand in the back of the box because they can't handle the speed.
2. If she is crowding the plate, she's begging the pitchers to throw her inside so back her away from the plate so that she'll get a better mixture of pitches.

From the net....(Scientists have discovered that there are a large number of internal brain structures which work together with the input and output brain structures to form fleeting images in the mind. Using these images, we learn to interpret input signals, process them, and formulate output responses in a deliberate, conscious, way.)
But after a while, the "seeing-thinking-doing" gradually becomes "seeing-doing" because your muscles seem to "know" and "remember" just what to do. What you're learning now is speed, i.e. how to perform the task carefully and quickly. That's muscle memory.

Scientists call this "kinesthetic memory" or "neuro-muscular facilitation" and they speak of "sensory-motor" learning, since you are combining sensing input, i.e. what you see with your eyes, with motor output, i.e. what you do with your body.

Of course, during the "drill-and-practice", your muscles aren't really memorizing anything (since all memories are stored in your brain). Instead, what you see with your eyes is interpreted by your brain in the form of nerve signals to your muscles to make your body move.

When teaching, we have found having a target area to hit in gives the hitter a visual of what they just did with the bat and a result IE; where did the ball go and what did I do to make it go there.Our nets are marked.

When doing our tee work we measure off from the back corner of home plate using the length of the bat. All of our tee work is done from there and as a matter of principal we do not move up and back in in the batters box as that affects timing. Mentally we want a picture of the window in our mind and we must take that picture with us if we do move, so we stay in one place until we understand the window.

The tee is set up 4.5 feet from the net. There is a separate tee from a home plate so the tee is 2 to 3 inches forward of home plate and it is centered.

We want them to stride even or slightly behind the tee.

By lining up this way they develop a relationship of where the ball is visually as to the balls depth in box or how far does the ball travel towards the catcher and where is the hitter going make contact with the ball. This relationship is explained by allowing them to become the human ball literally.

We have them walk down the middle of home plate, then we separate to toe touch, elbows, knob parallel to contact, contact and we show them where they are and where the bat is parallel, then we point out our belly button is pointing towards the pitcher and that we will drive the ball forward based on where they the ball are standing and how far our hips rotated and when we released our bat barrel and then we apply pressure with the bat gently and drive them up the middle.

Now we repeat the process and have them be an outside pitch and rotate as needed. We point out they the ball traveled further back in the box towards the catcher. Since they the ball traveled further back we had to wait longer HOWEVER we must still keep the knob inside the path of the ball or what we term our lane HOWEVER we must release the barrel of the ball sooner because the ball has traveled further as to depth in box. We point out the relationship of our belly button and we rotate as needed and release the barrel of the bat and gently shove them to the opposite field.

The human ball is now an inside pitch and we must hit the ball further out in front of the plate. We point out our belly button is turned further and could be pointing towards the short stop or even the third baseman depending on how far inside the pitch is. The next shock for most of them is the knob of the bat had to travel further to the ball for the inside pitch than for the outside pitch. Because the ball traveled further towards the catcher, we had to rotate less however we hand to release the bat head earlier!

Now we explain the knob traveled in our lane inside the path of the path of the ball and we release the bat barrel later HOWEVER we must hit the ball further out in front of the plate and we gently shove them in the pull field direction with the bat.

Because our tee/ home plate is marked they see the relationship now of what we term our window of opportunity to hit in actually looks like!

Nothing real scientific about it as we measure off from the back corner of home plate the width of the players shoe and make a mark and then measure off 12 inches toward the pitcher and make another mark and that becomes our window. On my tee I use for instruction, there is another line 2.5 inches forward that is green and another 2.5 inches forward of it that is yellow.

Depending on the hitters stride, usually between the green and blue will produce a fair ball and the yellow line produces foul balls!

This is why we teach bat control first by hitting up the middle first and because we have a target area they can see where the ball is actually going verses where it should be going.

The relationship is usually because the knob of the bat did not travel as far inside the path of the ball and the bat barrel was released too early and the barrel is traveling around the ball or pulling the pitch. Getting them to see visually that the barrel of the bat striking the ball squarely is a huge factor combined with the hip rotation is the light bulb moment for many students.

Again this is why we teach hitting up the middle first, outside second and any one can pull the ball which is usually the issue.

After several swings off the tee from the three positions, we then soft toss them up the middle, outside and then inside last.

Then we work on bat angle by tossing the ball below the knees, at the knees, mid thigh, waist, belly button and bottom of the elbows for each position.

Thanks Howard