| The Coach's Corner / See the Ball, Hit the Ball |
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This is the most basic of hitting concepts. We all spend a great deal of time and resources on the mechanics of executing a quality swing. But none of that matters if you don't see the ball! That is why there are no blind baseball players. They all go into umpiring, LOL My son (a pro AAA player) was tearing up the ball one season, hitting .350. Then his supply of contact lens ran out. He had already received a new batch but hadn't checked them. The next thing you know he was 2 for his last 24 and hitting .300. What happened? His new batch of contacts were filled off an old prescription (.5) instead of his newest prescription (.75). By the time he figured it out and got a new, correct batch shipped to him, he had lost 50 precious points from his BA! Your kid doesn't know if there is something wrong with his vision. He doesn't know if his contacts are too weak. He assumes what he sees is the way it's supposed to look. Before you hustle him off to another pricey session with a Hitting Instructor, get his eyes checked. My oldest son was nine and learning to shoot his new BB gun. I noticed he was leaning his head way over the barrel and sighting with his left eye. Only then did it occur to me to have his eyes checked. I found out he had amleopia. or “lazy eye”. He could see out of both eyes but only his left eye registered on his brain. If caught at an early enough age it is correctable by “patching” the good eye and making the weak eye work but we were too late. The biggest problem with this condition is a lack of depth perception. This makes hitting a moving ball a challenge. I told my wife I didn't think he would be able to play baseball for very long. I was wrong. Because he is the single most competitive person I have ever met, he found a way to out work and out compete everyone and he played through college when finally everyone worked hard and competed but everyone else had depth perception and moved ahead. I wish I had had his eyes checked earlier. It takes the ball approximately .4 seconds from the pitcher's release for the ball to hit the catcher's mitt. The hitter has approximately .2 seconds to determine speed, spin, and location and decide to swing and when and where. Seeing the ball off the pitcher's hand is crucial. I recently read that Gary Sheffield before hitting would stare into a glare. Then he would stare at something real small on the ground like a pebble. He contends this sharpened his vision for the AB. A baseball trainer that I know, has his pupils take soft toss BP with one eye patched, ten cuts and then 10 cuts with the other eye patched. He contends after this drill the vision is more acute. See the ball. Hit the ball. It's that simple. The Coach ARCHIVES
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Youth Sports Video
Gas Lites
Today in 1991, Houston QB
David Klingler sets NCAA
record with 6 touchdown
passes in the 2nd quarter
as the Cougars clobbered
Louisiana Tech 73-3.
