When I maybe 11 or 12, my dad had brought me to the batting cages near my house, and in the (I think?) 80mph lane next to me there was this pretty big/jacked dude making some good hits. After I was done, he came up to me and my dad, told us he was playing college ball, and proceeded to start giving me little tips and reccomendations. The one that really stuck, with me, was when he said your first joints/knuckles on your fingers(not counting where your fingers attach to your hand) should all line up on both hands, the way golfers hold a golf club. I played golf with my dad a lot, so that made sense to me, especially when he talked about the wrists/forearms/arms sort of rolling over right at the point of contact. I have no idea if that's accurate or a good recommendation, but nevertheless I took his advice. I didn't notice a huge difference(none at all at first), but looking back on it, I feel like it was a turning point for me. I was always the kind of player that when I swung at a pitch, I almost always hit, whether fair, foul, or just tipping it. I very rarely struck out(at least not by swinging at and completely missing pitches.) However, as I proceeded in my baseball "career", playing on all star teams, travel teams, high school, etc., I started missing the ball more and more. Granted, the pitching was getting much better, and there were a lot more breaking balls, but I feel like that grip that was just second nature to me now, was failing me. Eventually, I decided to go back to a "normal" grip, and around that same time, I had a coach talking to me, noticing I was missing high 90% of the time, and he told me to try hitting the top of the ball. Now, I'd of course heard this before, but what finally made sense for me, was when he said to "swing down on the ball." Between changing my grip, and trying to focus on "hitting the ball down"(I literally imagined myself swinging down on the top of the ball, and hitting it straight down onto home plate), I swear my BA must have gone up .100 points at least. Again, I don't know if this is considered "correct", or if it's still being taught, or perhaps even that it was only meant for me and batter's like me, who had the problem of missing high, or what, but that shit worked. Actually, now that I think about it, I was watching a game with my uncle a while back, and one of the players was explaining how he got out of a hitting slump when a swing coach told him to swing _up_ on the ball, so who knows?
It’s the summer right now and i just graduated middle school and want to play baseball but I have played before but it was 3 years ago I’ve been told my swing is a good swing and my fielding is good too just wanted to know if it’s a good idea or if it’s possible to start baseball as a freshman
Richard O if you want to play then play. Play over the summer to get better because you haven't played in three years then play in high school if you still want to
I let my 5 year old, Gracie, watch this (had to explain who Pujols is... We're Mariner fans so she knows Edgar and Mitchy! Haniger... Lol) She actually got it! Lol. It was awesome
