Baseball Hitting Aids For Any Back Yard

By Agnes Dickson


Good hitting requires not just an eye and reflexes but a disciplined swing. A good swing requires the number of repetitions that don't come when one has to constantly throw fresh baseballs to be sprayed a couple hundred feet in all directions across the park or backyard. Baseball hitting aids can cultivate any batter's natural and talent.

As a piece of sports equipment to improve one's swing, it doesn't get much simpler than the batting tee. It works on the same simple principle as the ordinary golf tee but the ball is held high, and is adjustable, usually between two and a half feet and almost four feet high. This puts the ball into the sweet spot for most young hitters, so they get that repetition.

To keep from having to spend all day running after balls struck off the tee, one could add a screen so the ball can be netted and pocketed . A few nets come with targets stitched in their netting to allow the youngster to know when the ball is a sure hit. Tees and screens are both just as good for softball as they are for baseball, and ought to be designed to stay upright and stationary during moderately windy days.

The entire problem of catching the batted ball before it flies off is altogether avoided by using a swing tee. With such a tee the ball is fixed to an arm that swings around an axis, that arm being parallel to the practice field itself. When the ball is struck it quickly is whipped about its stalk, then snaps back relatively slowly.

Many versions of the batting tee are good for sharpening a hitter's form using repetitions, but none of them simulate the reality of being thrown to by an actual pitcher. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get the repetitions one really needs when relying on others to pitch, especially repetitions in getting a feel for the strike zone and knowing just when to swing. This is where a pitching machine becomes useful.

Many automatically think of the automatic pitching machine as something likely to be expensive, priced to where one wouldn't own one unless running either a batting range or a ball club. Today, however, home-appropriate pitching machines just for younger smaller players are readily available. Many are almost as inexpensive as the glove or the bat, constituting some of the least expensive, but most valuable, pieces of hitting training equipment.

There are protective nets, looking like elongated rooms made out of mosquito netting, built to contain the batted balls when they are pitched, either by a pitching machine or by a cooperative practice pitcher. On the higher end of the price scale come the packages of equipment, often represented by famous major league players. With these packages also comes a good deal more differentiation between baseball and softball.

Much equipment once available only to the professionals is now ready for home use. It has been brought down from man-size to boy-size and girl-size, but is still tough enough to take the punishment. These are a useful set of tools to sharpen players' talent, all across the country and all across the world.




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