Theory on why it's so hard to move from the cage to the field

[Ken Krause]

Every fastpitch player and coach knows this experience. You've been working hard in the batting cage all season. You've hit thousands of balls off the tee, and thousands more off a machine, front toss or even full-out pitching. You've been ripping the ball every time. Then you get into a game and it's nothing but pop-ups, weak dribblers to the pitcher, and whiffs.

Yes, it's certainly frustrating, especially because you were expecting to do so well. But somehow the swing you had in the cage didn't quite translate to the field.

There can be a lot of contributing factors, many of which have been discussed before. Certainly there's an element of nervousness in a game situation that you don't have in practice. You have lots of chances to hit in practice situations, and if you mess one up you just take another. But in a game if you mess up, that's it. Your time at bat is over.

There's also worrying about consequences instead of focusing on the process. There's the pressure of parents, friends, coaches, teammates. In fact, there are all kinds of things that might be the cause.

Yet it even happens to otherwise mentally tough players for reasons no one has ever been able to explain. But I have a theory.

Think about the environment in a batting cage. It's very closed and very tight. You can see the top/ceiling, sides, and usually even a back wall. If the cage is 70 feet long and eight feet wide, it's still a pretty narrow space, as shown in the first photo.

Now think about what you see when you stand at home plate. The world is a lot bigger on the field. Instead of a 12 foot ceiling you have infinite space above -- the sky. Instead of a back wall you have 180 feet or more to the end -- way too far to be of concern. There is a ton of space, plus a ton of distractions. The second photo shows an empty field, but in a real game you'll have eight players from the other team in front of you, plus a couple of coaches. And baserunners if you're lucky. You have an opponent and an umpire behind you. And the always "helpful" fans in the stands.

With all that going on, the ball looks pretty small -- certainly a lot smaller than it does in a closed cage. It's the same phenomenon that makes the moon look bigger when it's low in the sky. In a case, your reference points to the ball are a lot closer so it seems bigger, or more important in the space. On the field, the ball takes up a very tiny portion of your field of vision.

Think about how you hit in a cage too. Because it's a long tunnel, hitters tend to try to hit the ball up the middle. After all, if you hit a screaming line drive down the first or third base line in a cage, it goes about 10 feet, hits a side net and dies. That isn't much fun. But if you drive it to center, the ball goes the length of the cage. That feels good, so you focus on driving it down the center. On a field, though, there's a lot of space ot hit the ball, so it tends to go all over.

Anyway, that's my theory about the problem. So what's the cure? You have to visualize the cage on the field, as shown in the third photo. Essentially you have to create a small space in your mind where the ball is bigger relative to the background so you can see it better, and you can stay focused on driving it into a gap.

If you can "see" the cage in your mind, it should help you look where you ought to be looking, and see better than if you're taking in the entire field plus sidelines.

Give it a try, and give me your feedback on how it worked. If you're a coach, feel free to copy the photos and show them to your team. I'll be interested in hearing if this theory proves itself to be true.

More...

 

[druer]

Excluding the impacts that we can't possibly have control over like the way each players adrenal glands work and how they cope with the chemistry that occurs under the stress of a real game situation, my personal feelings on what we can do to help resolve the problem are very close to yours so I'll share my thoughts and retain your theme.

It's easier to focus on the ball in the cage because not much else is going to distract our brains. I beleive that way to many girls allow their eyes to watch the pitcher because of all the flashy movement, and don't really know how to focus on the ball instead. If you think about games you've seen you'll probably recall pitchers with really fast motions but slow speeds, and often batters respond to the body movement and react way ahead of the pitch. And vice-versa I've seen many pitchers who have a very smooth, relaxed, slow release motion and the ball appears to just shoot out of their hand. They aren't throwing hard if measured with a gun, but their motions fool the batters eyes and they are way behind pitches.

My suggestions are for girls to purposely take their eyes from a big focus (the whole field) to a s small focus (the ball) in steps:

1. Until the pitcher is on the rubber, just allow the eyes to relax as they naturally do. All muscles need to rest, so let them.

2. Once the pitcher is on the mound, they should be focusing only on the pitchers shoulders and down. Physically this gets their muscles to begin working (like putting binoculars to our eyes it takes a second or two to really get focused). Psychologically this cuts off the pitchers head and turns all pitchers into the same figure. Keeping with your theme ... if you visualize the pitcher without her head it's almost like a pitching machine, you see the legs and the torso is like the rubber wheel.

3. The final step in focusing is that once the pitcher has presented the ball, the eyes should be focused exclusively on the hip where the ball will be coming out. Physically this gets our muscles to their finest level of granularity (like putting our eyes to a microscope.). It also serves to remove the distractions of the pitchers body movement, glove slaps, bends, leg drives etc. Keeping with your theme that is nearly identical to what they do in the cage. They focus on the "shoot" where the ball comes out of so they see the ball better.

Great topic Ken, like you I'm anxious to hear other theories.

 

[Hitter]

Ken this could be a great thread in my opinion.

I have to break it up into two posts....

It takes into account of not only what you teach however how it is taught.

When we teach do you ask did you feel that? And we let them off the hook by saying yes or no!

From the net...."Active learning techniques are also helpful for you, because they deemphasize lecture. You can use discussion questions and group exercises, as well as problem-posing and -solving sessions, to get your lecture points across in a meaningful and memorable way. How do you begin using active learning techniques in the classroom? Perhaps the easiest way is to ask reflective questions--not yes or no questions, but those that require students to think (e.g., What would you do in this particular situation? How would you approach solving this problem?). Reflective questions are difficult, so be prepared to wait for an answer (at least 20 to 30 seconds)."

From the net...."Another athlete said that his coach sometimes had players practice their skills in slow motion. In general, training sessions were designed so that there was a progression from simple to complex: “You would start out small and go big and he would build on his teachings. When we moved from simple to complex, the purpose of the drill was not lost. The same theme ran through each progression” (p12).These athletes’ comments suggest that great coaches pace their instruction according to each athlete’s learning curve."

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".

"Now by making the same movements in response to the same visual cues over and over again, the associated nerve-muscle connections gradually become more effective, i.e. the transmission of the signals becomes more effective, and this is how the "thinking" in the "seeing-thinking-doing" is gradually replaced by "seeing-doing", i.e. by muscle memory. Psychologists call this process "consolidation."

Movement Errors Caused at the Perceptual Level

"At the initial learning stage, a student commonly makes movement errors by misunderstanding the proper structure of the skill. In other words, while learning, a student is sometimes unable to fully understand the teacher's instructions. With an improper image of the skill, the student's motor cortex will send inaccurate signals to the related muscle groups, reducing movement errors. A student's misunderstanding of the skill can result from any of several potential causes."

"Teachers commonly use verbal instruction to teach students about limb positions, proper stance, what to watch and listen for, and how to perform a particular skill. The goal at this stage is to provide the student with the right image of the skill as a guide for practice. Intellectual ability plays an important role in understanding the skill; therefore, some students may understand instructions quicker than others because of individual differences of intellectual abilities. Similarly, the student's motivation and attention span can affect learning. If the student has a limited memory capacity, a lengthy instruction can cause confusion, especially when the student is learning a complex skill. All of these factors can impair the student's ability, to conceptualize the correct image of the skill."

We do a drill termed the matrix drill that uses a very deliberate slow motion to it so they can feel it from the toes to the head and all points between. It is very difficult to gain momentum when doing a drill that is being done slowly.

For example as when we say elbows and the bat is turning the corner and we stop! There should be some movement of the hip and back foot yet we stopped the momentum as a teach to feel so you must do it deliberately.

Then we say parallel to contact! This is where the hand is stacked over the elbow and then we have to move the knob of the bat a little more forward and we have no momentum by which to do it, so we have to give it a little running start and back up our hands and bat and try to rotate the hips a little faster and yet still be slow and deliberate while trying to do it.

It is not easy and yet the hitter tries to overcome the obstacles their body is feeling to make it happen so it feels natural to them. This may be the defining moment of getting it!

As they get faster at doing it they do still have to make adjustments and yo see the swing become more compact and quicker.

The tee work for us has been the key to taking it from the cage to the field as we want everything to be the same as to vision and tracking and timing and rhythm.

Maybe we make the mistake of tee work being different than what are actual swing should be.

For instance in a cage are you practicing hitting the ball up the middle?

Then do you take it to the opposite field?

Do you practice pulling balls?

Is your cage marked so you know if you are hitting the ball in the direction and place on the imaginary field?

If you have a tape measurer you simply come off the back corner of home plate to establish your lines and tie a rag and then do the same thing for short stop and second basemen positions and you have a field in the cage.

We do the same thing when working off a tee as our net is measured off so we have an idea of where the ball is going and to what angle I might add.

In the cage there is a dot on the wall and we track the ball from there to the tee or from the machine and the same applies to the nets we use for tee work.

Set up a visual in the hitters mind of what action is the pitcher making that triggers when we load and when we step and when do we swing?

I stand behind a hitter while they look into a mirror and they see me the pitcher and they load off the K position and step at the window of release based on their athleticism.

When using a machine this is a huge discrepancy I see many coaches make as they do not feed the machine like a pitcher pitches and you are practicing the wrong feeling and erasing the image we just spent working off the tee doing.

We are building into our practice and game swings of see it, feel it and fix it!

From SI....Sports Illustrated, March 25, 2002 had a great article on hitting titled, Hitters Rule, by Tom Verducci. He covers what is called the contact hitter (Ichiro), the blended hitter (Giambi) and the power hitter (Thome). Remember I said I wouldn’t talk styles of hitting.

On page 69, “Says Delgado, “At times when I’m going good, I can see the bottom half of the ball on it’s way to the plate. That’s were I want to hit it.” And “Jeter is another hitter with extraordinary vision. He’s often able to see in the blur of the pitcher’s arm moving forward whether what’s coming at him is the bottom of the pitcher’s wrist (indicating a fastball) or the side of the wrist (indicating a breaking ball). “I’ve tried, but I can’t see it, “Yankees catcher Jorge Posada says. “I don’t know how he does it.” Rodriquez trains his eyes to focus quickly. While in the on deck-deck circle, he holds his bat a few inches from his face, the trademark facing him. He focuses on the trademark, and then quickly shifts his focus to the face of the centerfielder.”

Page 70, Martinez. “He performs eye exercises twice a day, for 45 minutes in the morning and then for five to 10 minutes about 30 minutes before game time. Martinez keeps a worn card, slightly larger than an index card that has a green circle to the left and a red circle to the right. Inside the perimeter of both circles are the words THESE LETTERS, though the R is missing from the green circle and the first T in LETTERS is missing from the red. When he stares at a spot between the two circles, because of a process optics experts call binocular fusion, a brown circle appears with all the letters of THESE LETTERS.” (Note you must stare at the center between the circles and yes it works!) The difficult letter for me is the (T) in the brown circle. I wear tri-focal glasses. “This exercise strengthens his eye muscles.” And “Attempting to improve his depth perception, Martinez will shift his focus from one of those letters to a spot on a distant wall with the same grid of letters, only larger, and then back again. Martinez also bunts against those high velocity tennis balls. (Other times, after slowing their speed, he tries to read the number on them as they whiz by.) “After tracking a smaller ball going 150 miles per hour,” Martinez says, “a baseball going 90 doesn’t seem so fast.”

All of our hitters do the pencil drill and we try to get them to do the card drill as it not only helps their hitting and I think it helps them with their fielding also.

I need to make two posts as this is too long....

Thanks Howard

 

[Hitter]

Ken this is the second part of my opinion....

From the net...."So there are several cognitive factors that affect hitting, what about the visual aspect of hitting? (Hofeldt, 1993) implied that visual ability as measured by stereo photometry accounts for 47% or more of the variation in batting averages of the Major League players.

From Howard....If 47% percent of the variation is in vision why do we spend so much time on perfecting the hand path? What is the hand path contribution verses any other such as stance, toe touch; heel plant, connection, POC and extension have to do with it?
TSW had 20/10 vision, Bustos has 20/8 and 20/9 and what about Bonds and AP, Manny? WOW! Maybe just maybe, it is not all in the MLB Pattern each person picks as the model to use for the MLB Swing Pattern after all!

From the net... "A study done by Mulia (1998), sought to find a stronger relationship between visual function and hitting a baseball. Multiple parameters including near and distant stereopsis were measured in 23 returning college baseball the level of stereopsis was measured by a B-VAT II BVS Binocular Vision Testing System.

Batting statistics were compared with batting averages and slugging percentages. There was no correlation between distance stereopsis and any hitting performance parameters.
The relationship between eye dominance and batting skills in baseball (Classe, 1996) was investigated. A vision screening of 215 professional baseball players in the Southern Baseball League was performed and the eye dominance of these players determined by a sighting test. The vision screening indicated that 66% of the subjects were right-eye dominant. Also, 60% of the subjects had matched dominant eye and hands. It was found that there was no statistically significant difference between batters with matched dominance and those with crossed dominance.
JM Portal (1998), studied ocular sighting dominance in collegiate baseball. The study examined patterns of eye and hand dominance and to see if there was a correlation between handed, dominance, and success. The study specifically examined whether crossed eye- hand dominance favors the hitter. Twenty-five collegiate baseball players were studied with none being ambidextrous. The subject’s visual acuity, stereoscopic vision, ocular modality and ocular sighting dominance were determined. The result of this study indicated that the player who batted with the same eye and hand dominance achieved the most successful batting performance."

Just my opinion, the stance they use to get a good two eyed look at the ball and how they track it and the balance achieved during the swing and how well they see the ball may have a 47% affect so we are almost half way there possibly!

Thanks Howard

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Howard your posts are always my favorite to read, so full of detailed information. I may have missed this answer somewhere, but have only been on this site for a short time.

What is your background, baseball, fastpitch softball?? Coaching/playing?? If this is too personal of a question I apologize. You seem to have a great deal of knowledge and was just wondering where all your knowledge comes from.

Respectfully GD.

 

[Hitter]

Howard your posts are always my favorite to read, so full of detailed information. I may have missed this answer somewhere, but have only been on this site for a short time.

What is your background, baseball, fastpitch softball?? Coaching/playing?? If this is too personal of a question I apologize. You seem to have a great deal of knowledge and was just wondering where all your knowledge comes from.

Respectfully GD.

I taught myself how to teach hitting and pitching by trail and error nearly 22 years ago because of our sons near fatal accident that left him paralytically paralyzed for seven years.

His success then spread to other kids we helped and it kept getting better over time and I started working with other coaches and players.

Several of our boys played ball at the college level and then 4 went to the Frontier League, Great Lake League, Coastal Carolina, I think is the name of the other league.

In the Cincinnati area we starting having some of the top boy hitters in the area and in 1996 one of my friends I worked with at GE Aircraft Engines wanted me to work with his daughter and at first I refused as it did not feel comfortable to me and I knew only one way to teach hitting and we started working with the girls and their results were immediate and then the arguments started!

The coaches did not want the girls using a baseball swing on the softball field and the father said he had played at Tennessee and this was the way to hit the ball!

His daughter had great success in high school and went to Ole Miss and was our first girl to play in college.

I had friends who worked the Griffey International School of Baseball so my network was expanded and we gained more resources to help us.

My attorney was a friend of Ken Griffey Sr. and we shared some ideas on hitting and I started working with his nephew and I was learning more and more as to what would work and what did not and what to focus on more!

They asked me for advice on how to improve the Instructo Swing so I designed an adjustable base, and introduced extension nuts so it would stay together and perform better.

I learned a lot during making the improvements and collected a lot of data as to the angle to hit the ball and calculated that about 8 to 12 degrees would work very well.
I worked with my sons JV team and they went 25 and 0 for the first time in there schools history and scored a bunch of runs while doing it.

Dusty Baker had been stuffing catchers gloves under the Instructo Swing Base to increase the angle, so the new angle adjustment made it a product anyone could use no matter what angle they wanted to use.

Because of my soft ball girls I added a top tee to use for slapping, as it gave you instant feed back if you dropped your hands. At a clinic, I had Whatley try some more modifications, so we added another three adjustment points so the tee angle in the bar could be changed as she probably has the most downward angle of any slapper i ever worked with.

Crystl's agent was working for the company that represented the Instructo Swing and introduced us to each other in 2002. He felt we had a system by which we were teaching that was unusual verses what other instructors were doing especially when it came to the girls.

My wife is an RN, so I started using her books to identify why certain things worked with females the way it did verses males and found a way to explain it to the girls based on their lack of neuro muscular skills .

By talking with kinesiologist and certified trainers, it has allowed me to ask the questions that has been in my mind as to how certain things work and by working with in my opinion, the greatest female hitter in the world, as to how the female should feel it! This is why we started saying see it, feel it and fix it!

I never taught Crystl how to hit as her Dad George and her Uncle Jesse did. In my opinion, I just taught how to hit it harder and farther with a little more balance. We worked together at our house for a few hours and she said you have a different way of teaching and a lot of STUFF to help you get it across to your kids. It is almost as if it was designed around someone that has a learning disability. I explained what had happened to our son.

For seven years we went through rehab with our son doing PT and getting him back because of the seizures and brain injuries. I attended his physical therapy sessions and ask questions and took notes on what worked as to teaching kids that were not the gifted or elite athlete. This is where I learned about using mirrors and different ways to teach kids and asking reflective questions verses a yes or no answer most kids give you. We got our students to engage in their learning process of throwing and hitting.

Ohio State sent representatives to our home to see how we were working with our son, as they could not believe the progress we were making with his school work and his athleticism was improving. He had three cerebral contusions and a post lateral fracture of the right hemisphere and a loss of short term memory and a loss of executive order and organizational skills.

The post testing for head trauma was changed based on some of the these techniques we were doing with our son and that was tested at Miami University since it is close to where we live and he would not have to miss as much school.

I started working with Crystl in 2002, and we started doing clinics together and making improvements every step of the way. In my opinion she has taught me more that I have ever taught her and I am still learning.

I was given an opportunity to work with Whatley, Topping ,Berg, Lowe, Jung, Finch doing clinics and you can not believe how much it helped as to teaching females!

The next person to help me was Don Slaught and his network of friends! Talk about resources and he has them. We have shared ideas and I have made him hitting tools that he has used at the MLB level. His knowledge and insight has been priceless as to how to teach and what to teach!

I consider him a friend and a mentor!

He introduced me to Dr. Bill Harrison and my education on vision training began and we made some devices to aid in teaching to track the ball and how important the stance is.

In 2005, I was given the opportunity to work with the Chinese National Softball Team for two years and use what we had learned. Many improvements were made in their approach to hitting and we moved them from 6 place in the world and finished 4 pace at the ISF Championships in Beijing.

I left the team after two years based on human rights violations imposed by a Chinese Coach.

I came up with the initial concept of the WhipHit training bat as well as many other products we use at our clinics.

Don Slaught actually used the first WhipHit bats while he was with Detroit as well as the hammer bat I designed.

Personally I find it funny that Don, one year as a hitting coach, help produced an ALCS winner and after his exit they abandoned his methods and technology and what have they done since then?

I still smile when some of these so called baseball sites claim what they do works better and it makes me laugh out loud, especially when you know the truth.

Up to that point I had read every book on the market, TSW, Lau Sr. plus his video's, Baker, Schmidt, Louisville Slugger. If our library had a book or a video I checked it out.

I worked for GE Aircraft Engine and during this time I was working in engine assembly, writing procedures on how to assembly and dis assemble jet engines.

I was a jet mechanic during my service in the US Navy from 68 to 72 and learned many things that helped me to grow as to mechanical experience and learned about processes and procedures. Prior to entering the Navy I had taken martial arts training and became a certified diver and had worked in a machine shop since I was 13, so STUFF came pretty easy for me as to how things work.

It kind of took off from there and the kids and parents kept asking for help based on the others kids success.

When our son left for college in 2000, we started working in more girls and to be honest they are easier to work with.

That is the long version!

Short version....With a lot of help from my friends, parents and kids, coaches, Crystl Bustos and some of her team mates and Don Slaught and his friends and God Almighty as our son recovered completely!

Thanks Howard

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Howard, first and foremost I'm so glad to hear about your son's recovery. We have never had a serious injury, and I can't imagine as a father all the emotions that would be involved.

Second, thank you for taking your valuable time to answer my question. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will enjoy reading it. You have had some great experiences along the way. Most are ones that only a select few have the privilege to be a part of. Sounds like you are highly intelligent man who has had time, with the help of your friends, to expand that knowledge and do some great things for your family and others alike.

Thanks again for helping all of us on this site. I have learned a great deal from posting and reading posts. It is such a wonderful tool to see how things are done in the 'name' of softball from other's points of view, training tools and aids, coaching perspectives, and how the game is organized in other regions of the country.

GD

 

[Hitter]

My wife and I were standing on the Great Wall of China and I said can you believe we are standing here because we know how to hit a softball?

The Chinese actually call the Great Wall the Wall of Sorrow as so many people died and are in tombed inside the wall itself. The people were starving and it was time to plant or harvest and they were to only build the wall and nothing else was a priority....just the wall!

I cannot tell you the doors that Crystl, Don and several college coaches have opened for me to try our techniques out on that have helped us learn what some people have said is the most difficult thing to do in all of sports and that is too hit a round object with a round object!

Many people try to make it more difficult by naming body parts and muscles groups and involving many scientific terms without explaining them and to be honest absolutely unnecessary terms to show how smart they are verses getting coaches and parents to see it, feel it and fix it.

I find this especially with the baseball sites.

No wonder they can not take it from the tee to the cage or field as most have no clue how to do it in my opinion!

Then everyone wants video of what we do when actually if you read many posts they can not explain what it is they actually see nor can they put into words how to do it. They want someone else to attempt it so they can pick it apart and make them look smarter by doing it.

They think it becomes incumbent for someone else to please them and allow the argument or debate to continue.

Our home is situated on a busy road and I explain to our kids when learning how to drive that judging the speed of the on coming car or how fast we must go to merge into traffic or judging distance is like hitting.

Cut the corner and you run over the curb or hit the car in the other lane or basically foul the ball.

When you can not judge speed and know when to get your body to a space and time to hit more than most likely it will be a strike.

Timing and rhythm is in every thing we do in my opinion and it is how we teach it, as it relates to hitting, which is what makes us as instructors different and some more successful than others.

If all of these people with their opinions were indeed that good the MLB average would be higher than .266 for the average MLB player.

If 47% is attributed to vision ask yourself why they are so hung up on mechanics and very few talk about vision drills or getting a good two eyed look and what in your stance provides that?

Yes! We are thankful to God for our blessings, as watching our son on a ventilator for a week was painful and watching kids dying around you in ICU was heart breaking!

Then some of these fools make hitting sound like life or death and hurt others intentionally and are considered adults!

Our son made it and we are thankful and there are others who did not and are still grieving....some can not put it into perspective!

It is a beautiful Sunny day here in Ohio today and not a cloud in the sky!

When I coached our son he was about 12 and was pitching and I called time and went out to talk with him and the first thing he said was are you pulling me?

No! I just thought I would give you a break! It was cloudy and looked like it was going to rain anytime. I said it looks cloudy doesn't it? Yes! When we were flying don't you remember flying through the clouds and that the Sun is always there? Yes! Well Son lets look at that bright side of it!The Sun is on the other side of the clouds! Are you ready? Yep!

When I got back in the dug out the manager said what did you tell him? I said he better strike this guy out or you were going to pull him!

He had a great game and we still talk about it and the Sun is always on the other side of the clouds no matter what is happening in our life!

Thanks Howard