How to Improve My Baseball Swing
Have Powerful, “Focused” Hands!
When I initially began learning how to improve my baseball swing, one of the most important things I learned was to always concentrate on having powerful, “focused” hands.
Wondering what “focused” hands are?
You’ve heard a coach say “Keep your hands back!” to the person up to bat, right?
Well, whether you have or not, this means to always keep your hands in the “ready” position – always have “focused” hands. If you do this, you will be ready and able to hit the ball with all your force at any given time.
When most baseball players are up to bat, they tend to raise their hands a bit higher, pulling them in towards their body and then holding them back a bit.
This is exactly what you need to do!
Unfortunately, the problem with a lot of players, is that they don’t keep their hands back long enough. Many players bring their hands forward way too soon, which eliminates a good portion of their hitting power.
Another very common problem is that a player will actually hold their hands back too far when they’re up to bat. If a player’s hands appear to be behind their head when they’re in the “ready” position, they’re holding their hands back too far.
To tell if you have true, powerful, “focused” hands when you’re up to bat, you should be able to see your hands out of the corner of your eye while looking towards the pitcher’s mound.
Balance Your Weight
Another very important thing I learned when improving my baseball swing was how to balance my weight properly.
Scholarships by Sport: Baseball and Basketball
Baseball:
For the thousands of potential collegiate baseball players considering the possible financial opportunities for themselves, there are partial athletic scholarships available, although not guaranteed.
The Myth: Despite what some boasting ballplayers say, college baseball programs don’t hand out full athletic scholarships to recruits. In very special situations coaches may package together a combination of athletic and academic money. This too is very rare.
The Facts: The reason no baseball players receive full scholarships is because there are few to give out. NCAA Division I programs are permitted to disperse only 11.76 scholarships per year, and many lower level Division I programs have less because they cannot fund the full allowed amount. Division II schools are allotted even less scholarships, possessing a total of 9. For Division III baseball programs, they are not permitted to grant any athletic scholarships. But, they do offer a good deal of academic money for those players who are eligible.
The Scholarship Breakdown:
There are 287 division I and 246 division 2 colleges that offer NCAA baseball scholarships. That is a total of 5,594 scholarships in the NCAA alone. Scholarship athletes may receive no less than a 25% athletic scholarship
Overall: To receive a scholarship in such a highly competitive sport such as baseball it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. A high school ballplayer may be able to use his talents to partially pay for college. Parents would appreciate this. But, college coaches have the power to divide scholarships however they please.
Other Scholarships: The American Legion awards over 50-$1,000 scholarships to outstanding athletes on their baseball team rosters.
Basketball:
If you are aware of the challenges and hard work that it takes to receiving a scholarship offer, you will have a firm foundation to move forward and be rewarded for you hard work (Please refer to our scholarship article).
Pre-Game Evaluation
You’re on the bus traveling to a brand new opponent’s ball park, of course you have the normal pre-game jitters, your stomach is queasy and you can’t stop tapping your foot. Taking a deep breath to calm the nerves, you mentally go through your first task upon arriving, which if you think is analyzing the opposing team, you’d be wrong.
As soon as you step off the bus and walk to the dugout your senses of sight, and hearing should become acutely aware, familiarizing yourself with the environment. Familiarity, subconsciously, breeds comfort and you want to quickly become acclimated to the environment so you can focus on playing baseball.
1. Prior to beginning your warm-up tosses, slowly and carefully take a wide scan around the entire field, foul pole to foul pole, making a mental note of anything which could come into play that could affect the ball. Ask yourself a few questions as you look.
B. The most important thing to inspect is the playing field, especially the texture and make up of the playing field. Nearly all amateur ball parks have a dirt infield, but every now and then you’ll run across a grass infield with sliding pits around the bases. Most importantly look at the outfield grass, is it thick or tall, as this will definitely have an impact on ground balls through the infield, such as you’ll have to automatically charge a ball if the grass is high, or you may be able to stretch a hit into a double.
C. Observe the field layout including foul territories and corners. There may be a slight dip or ditch 25′ outside the left field foul line, which would most likely be out of play, but if you’re running full speed chasing a foul ball fly in that area, you’ll need that subconscious note to pull up before falling or tripping in the ditch.
Do You Forgive Steve Bartman?
Everyone in the country should know who Steve Bartman is and if you don’t than what planet have you been on? On October 14, 2003 the Chicago Cubs were playing the Florida Marlins in the postseason. The Cubs were on the brink of winning the game and thought they were about to get out of the eighth inning. The Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo hit a foul ball down the left field line that looked like it could of been caught by left fielder Moises Alou for the Cubs.
The ball was just on the border of the wall and the field of play, but no matter what you say Cubs fans will say that Bartman should-of never attempted to catch the ball. So, Alou made-a-valiant effort to catch the foul ball, but his attempt was foiled by a fan in the first row. Steve Bartman had inadvertently caught the ball, not even knowing what was going on in the game.
I am a huge sports fan and even I was unaware of the whole story until I watched the ESPN special “Catching Hell” a few months ago. The program explained that Steve was actually listening to the game on a radio with headphones on his ears. The game on the radio was actually a few seconds slower than the actual real game action. So, when the foul ball was hit Steve unknowingly was unaware what was really happening in the game. Therefore, in my opinion he should not have shouldered all of the blame.
Texas Rangers And Yu Darvish Are A Good Fit
Anyone that knows me, Rhonn Mitchell, realizes that I’ve been a Texas Rangers fan for sometime. I remember going to the old ballpark and sitting in the $5 bleacher tickets. Even though it was hot as hell, it was a great experience to watch the home town Rangers play. And now it’s a pleasure in the life of Rhonn Mitchell & other Collin County residents to be able to enjoy the Frisco Riders as the local minor league team. But enough of the nostalgia.
Things are starting to look up for the Texas Rangers. Amazingly the rights to negotiate with the Japanese Ace, Yu Darvish. The Texas Rangers franchise is making a big splash to bring a strong pitching staff to the team for the 2012 season. With the Loss of Cliff Lee at the end of the 2010 season, we had to depend on CJ Wilson to be a Ace. That was a big mistake. CJ didn’t have the fire power and mental fortitude to be a strong force in the World Series. But it appears with back 2 back appearances in the post season, the Rangers are the new hot destination for free agents to go.
With the 2012 season on the horizon, it is going to be a challenge to go back to the World Series. But I think if the Texas Rangers can find one Ace pitcher and possibly bring a hidden gem from the minor leagues, we could be a major factor in the post season! It’s a bit strange to be talking about baseball before spring training in Texas, but I’m excited! So Santa, please let the Nolan Ryan & The Texas Rangers get some great pitchers in this off season.