Coaching Youth Baseball

The softball player must be able to compete with faster pitching today.  Even though I am a former baseball coach, I have the answer for this. The principles for the  correct stroke are the same for fast pitch softball as they are for baseball.            

In today’s game when coaching youth baseball it is absolutely essential that the good hitter is “short to the ball” with a good compact stroke. 

A major part of being the best hitter we can be is to be “tough to strike out.”  A good hitter should have no more than a 10% strike-out ratio.  The strike out gives us NO chance to help our team.  By not putting the ball in play, we give the defense their easiest out.  

While no one has to be convinced that a strike out is not good, we cannot fear the strike out.  We must not let it affect our boldness when we come up to bat.  We should hate it, despise it, avoid it like the plague, but NEVER fear it.  Know that every time we come to bat, we will make SUPER CONTACT.  

So the first part of the process is TOTAL CONFIDENCE, to completely eliminate our fear of the strike out. 

Part two is “How do we do this?” 

The Super 8 Hitting System gives us the hitting tips to practically eliminate striking out.  It explains the biggest secret in hitting.  It is called the “drive” action.  It is short, direct, and will immediately improve contact. 

By consistently practicing the “drive” action, the softball player can be assured that she can improve her ability to put the ball in play over 90% of the time. 

To do this, the player gets into a “45º drive position”, which means that before we initiate the stroke, we rotate the hips half way to the pitcher.  For the right-handed batter, this would point the knob of the bat and the belly button about where the second baseman would play.  Then all the hitter needs to do is to snap the bat on the ball. 

Three advantages happen immediately: 

1. The batter will see the ball better: better read for ball movement.
2. From here the hands just snap the bat.
3. Hands now go directly to the pitch in a straight line, linear to the pitch.

Seeing the ball should be twice as easy for the hitter, eliminating “swing and miss” of the pitch, outside and inside the strike zone. 

Players that perfect this technique rarely strike out. 

We fully explain the “drive action” in the Super 8 Hitting System, completely demonstrated in a series of baseball hitting videos, which includes many baseball and softball hitting drills.  

HITTING TIP:   “DRIVE” --- One of the biggest hitting secrets for both baseball and softball!