Sunday, December 22nd, 2024

Hit it far or hit it hard?

April 30, 2014 by  
Filed under Hitting

This year, my son once again asked if I could help coach his 7 year old team.  I’m one of the assistants.  When it comes to hitting, I’ve found myself recently saying, “hit the ball far, guys.”  I started the season using my standard phrase “hit it hard.”  I think I started to use “far” because I felt

"Hit it far" has some merit

“Hit it far” has some merit

the young kids thought that just making contact on the barrel meant they had hit the ball “hard.”  Obviously it doesn’t.  When I caught myself saying “hit it far” I wondered if that was actually a good thing to say to young kids.  However, the more I thought about it the more I felt it’s not a bad thing to say to hitters.

When you hit a mile high pop-up over the mound you technically hit the ball hard but I’m not sure you can really say that was a good outcome.  On the other hand, when you hit the ball far you had to have taken a much better swing and you must have hit it hard otherwise it would not have gone far.   You can even add a third benefit in that they must have been aggressive too.

I don’t think I’ve ever advocated hitting the ball far as a goal for young hitters but I’m warming to the idea.  It promotes aggressiveness at the plate, it promotes a more sound mechanical swing, and it requires a batter to hit the ball hard on the good part of the bat.

“Try to hit the ball far, boys!”

Tomorrow’s post:  You better learn how to laugh

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