Hitting is the most natural baseball skill. Some hitter seems to have been born with a natural ability to hit. But there is a lot that can be learned about hitting. When you hit, you use your bat, your arms, your legs, your feet, your hands, your eyes, and your body. But you also hit with your brains—and that is the area that keeps improving with experience.
Pick a bat that you can swing quickly. This usually means picking a bat one size smaller than you think you like. Speed of bat is a lot more important in getting hits than weight of bat.
“Get the bat on the ball.” If there is one thing going through your mind when you’re hitting, it should be this phrase. Do anything you can to get the bat on the ball.
Hitting the ball fair will get you on base 50 percent of the time. When you hit fair balls, some will be hits, some the fielder will miss. Ground balls hit stones, infielders will make bad throws, first base players will drop throws, players drop pop-ups, some will drop balls, others throw to wrong base, and some will fall down. You can hit only .250 but be worth .500 to your team because you always hit the ball fair.
THE FORM OF HITTING
Your feet should be in the proper position in order to hit. They should be comfortably apart and parallel to the edge of home plate, with knees slightly bent, get upon the balls of your feet and lean a bit toward the plate, you cannot get the power or the stride to hit if you’re standing back on your heels, so get on the balls of your feet, then shift your weight to our back foot. As you swing, transfer your weight to your front foot.
Your distance from the plate should be about 0.4 to 0.6 meters. When measuring, remember that you want the barrel of your bat—the fat part—over the plate when you swing. Some hitters lean over and touch their bats to the far edge of the plate, when they straighten up and swing the plate. Setting the bat and your hands is important to good batting form. Hold the bat in such a way that when it crosses the plate during your swing, the label will be facing straight up or straight down. Place your hands with the two sets of knuckles of one hand lined up with the two sets of knuckles of the other—right hand above left hand if you’re right-handed, left hand above right hand if you’re left handed. Keep both hands together, 2.5cm or so above the knob of the bat handle. Then move your hands to a position in front of your back shoulder (or slightly lower) holding the bat straight up in the air, or possibly pointing slightly backward, Keep your back elbow away from your body, and do wrists. This is the “classic” batting stance, but comfortable some other way.
