Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Some Varieties Of Baseball Hitting Aids

By Agnes Dickson


Hitting tools can help hone a young batter's inherent talent and make the best of it soonest. Keen vision and quick reflexes certainly don't hurt when it comes to teeing the ball, but a balanced and disciplined swing is essential. The only way to cultivate that fine a swing is through many repetitions, and a great many repetitions is difficult to maintain if the youngster is forever gathering baseballs from the outfield. Baseball hitting aids are a good resource for gaining repetitions.

A good place to begin might be with perhaps the simplest aid of all, the everyday batting tee. It does just what a golf tee would do but holds the ball higher, usually between thirty and forty-five inches high. This is a good range for younger hitters just perfecting their stroke.

With a portable screen added to hitting practice, a batter can not only use the tee all afternoon but won't have to interrupt practice by spending time going out after the balls he or she has crushed. Many nets also have brightly colored targets that are stitched into the net to show the player where and how well they are nailing the ball. Screens and tees are useful for practicing both baseball and softball, and are typically built to stay put on 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.

Several types of batting tee work to sharpen a young hitter's swing by making maximum use of repetitions. Sadly, there really is no replacement for a live pitcher, especially for development of both timing and eye for the strike zone. The pitching machine is invaluable at helping develop these facets of good hitting.

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.

One might look to buying protection nets for the back yard, looking like rooms or hallways woven out of fishing nets, for practicing with a pitching machine or with a practice pitcher. Those who don't mind something more pricey can look to the packages of equipment, quite often sponsored by a big name star. With packages one does see more of a difference between baseball and its cousin, softball.

There is a lot more equipment once reserved for the practice field that is now available for home use. All of it is conveniently scaled down for smaller athletes, but sturdy to withstand those shots that are sure to come as their skills sharpen. This equipment is quite possibly sharpening the skills of future batting champions every day.




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