Baseball Hitting Drills
Baseball hitting drills are activities that ball players participate in to get them ready to hit live batting practice and eventually live pitching in a real game. Every hitter participates in these drills every season during practice. There are, however, some hitting drills that aren’t used enough and could help batters become even better hitters. You can practice these drills on the ball field as well as your own backyard.
One of these baseball hitting drills is the modified broomstick activity. Get a broom handle that is modified down to the actual length of a baseball bat and practice hitting plastic golf balls. Someone should be pitching to you, of course. Take any old wooden broomstick and have an adult saw the stick so the length is about the size of your typical bat. You can sand the end of it if you have time and place batters tape on that end for grip. You can buy the plastic golf balls at most sporting goods stores.
The distance between you and the pitcher doesn’t really matter as long as the pitcher can toss you the balls easily. Try underhand first, until you get the hang of it. Then switch to overhand pitches so there is some appropriate velocity on the pitch which simulates a real pitch.
You can work on many different hitting mechanics for improvement, but now let’s just focus on your upper body. The key baseball hitting tip here is to first relax. I’m talking about your shoulders, neck and face. If you are too tense at the plate it is much harder to have a quick, fluid swing. That’s what this baseball hitting drill is for.
After relaxing you want to make sure that your front shoulder is lined up to the pitcher and have it closed. Sometimes ball players have an issue with leaving their shoulder open and that makes them open up and start their swing too early. Players like this often pull the ball all the time in the form of a ground out or fly out.
During this baseball hitting drill, keep that shoulder closed and wait for the plastic golf ball to arrive in the hitting zone before taking a smooth, fluid swing. Take turns hitting 25 balls and then rotate. This drill will remind you of backyard wiffle ball in the summer so try to have fun with it.
The goal is working on mechanics and hand-eye coordination but after a couple turns you might want to mark a line in the grass or street that represents the fence and see how many you can hit over. If you have any variations of these baseball hitting drills or have pictures of you or your team participating in them and want them posted on this site, e-mail us at info@baseballhittingtipsonline.com
My years of experience playing and teaching baseball hitting will help you with the challenge of learning how to hit a baseball correctly. Articles such as the one you just read will inform and motivate you to a better understanding of proper baseball hitting whether you are a coach, parent or ballplayer. Check back here for upcoming
baseball hitting tips articles and e-mail us any questions or comments.
Jeff Wise
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