AGGRESSIVE CONTROL AT THE PLATE

How many times have you heard a coach, parent or teammate yell out while you are up at the plate, "Be aggressive"! "Come on!" "Let's go!!" Ever tell yourself or have a coach tell you 'go up there hacking.' On the surface that seems to be good advice because every hitter should be going up to the plate anticipating that each pitch will be his pitch.

The problem with this mentality, however is, the hitter's focus is on swinging and not seeing the ball - first. It is my opinion that what the player hears is one thing - swing! It's almost as if the coach is saying, "hit the ball, see the ball'. Instead of the old standard, "see the ball, hit the ball". Remember, you need to guide the bat to the ball - make contact. Seeing that the ball is not one you want to swing at determines if you should not swing. To do that, you have to have balance between aggression and control.

As H. A. Dorfman explains in his book, 'The Mental Keys to Hitting', this balance between aggression and control is like driving a car. Every car has an accelerator - the gas pedal - and a control mechanism - the brake. The gas pedal represents aggressiveness and the brake represents control. You know that by pressing down on the gas pedal you will get to where you are going. And you know that with the brake you can get to where you are going in one piece. Gas pedal and brakes are necessary to appropriately operate the car just as both aggressiveness and control is essential in hitting.

So, your approach towards each at bat should be aggressive. But it should be aggressiveness under control. As the pitch is coming the thought process should be; swing, swing, swing, take! Or swing, swing, swing, swing! And you should be anticipating that each pitch will be your pitch because you are now mentally programmed - ready - to hit your pitch. If you go up to the plate not anticipating your pitch you will be surprised by the pitch when it is your pitch.

The other problem with the "Be aggressive"! "Come on!" "Let's go!!" mentality is that you become an anxious hitter. An anxious hitter is usually a scared hitter. And what is he scared of? The dreaded strike out!! It's embarrassing, humiliating. Especially if everyone else is hitting that pitcher. So the anxious hitters' goal is to put the ball into play as early in the count as possible. And in order to do that he can't take any pitches because if he does and they are called strikes, he falls behind in the count. And he knows that pitch counts like 0-2 and 1-2 are to the pitchers advantage - not the hitters. So he 'goes up there hacking.' Unfortunately while this hitter believes that this is being aggressive, the reality is that this is a self protection mentality. It's based on a fear of failure.

Besides the dreaded strike out, there is what I call the 'I Gotta' attitude. It's a 'must do' attitude. Don't know what this is? I bet you've been there. It's your turn at bat, the bases are loaded. The team is down one run and it's late in the game. Your team mates, the coach, the fans, your parents are all yelling "Come on!" "Let's go!!" As you are walk to the plate the only thought in your mind is ; "I gotta get a hit!" But the problem with this attitude is that it also is based on a fear of failure. But this fear is not coming from performing the 'task at hand' but rather by the expectations of others. You can't let your team mates down, your parents, the coach - the others!! Because while the batter might say out load "I gotta get a hit", the second part of the thought, which he won't repeat out load, is 'If I don't get a hit I've failed!" They are expecting you to get a hit. Deep down inside there is that feeling of letting your teammates down, your parents, the coach. No one wants to fail. No one wants to let themselves, their teammates, their parents, and the coach down.

Now let's go back to the car analogy. You know that by pressing down on the gas pedal you will get to where you are going. You know that with the brake you can get to where you are going in one piece. But a key ingredient in successfully controlling the car is that you need to see where you are going. And to do that - see where you are going - you need to focus - on that task. Just as important it is to focus on seeing where you are heading when operating a car successfully so is focusing on seeing the ball to hit successfully.

Each year for our Fall travel team we prepare profile sheets for each player that we pass along to college coaches. One of the stats we record is the players speed from home to second. So what we do is have each player go up to the plate, hit a pitched ball - like it's a game situation - then run to second so that we can time them. We do this several times. What's interesting about this exercise is that most of the time the players hit the ball weakly and sometimes even foul the pitch off. Keep in mind that these are select players, they are good hitters and they are facing a batting practice pitch. But yet no home runs, no hard line drives.

By the way, we have done this for several years, with the same results. Now why do you suppose that happens? Where is their focus? Is it on hitting the ball or is it on running as hard as possible so that they get a fast time to put down on their profile sheet so that the coach at the college he wants to go to will be impressed with his time?

A few years ago I went to a seminar conducted by Dr. Bill Harrison, a specialist in the field of Visual-Mental Performance Training. During which he asked the group of players who attended the seminar what they thought was their #1 job when they went up to the plate. He got some good answers. "Hit the ball hard", Hit the ball up the middle", "Wait for my pitch", Stay relaxed'. He complimented each player who answered and assured all the players that all of their answers were good answers. However he also told them they were wrong. They were stunned. How could that be! Every answer they gave was probably said by every coach they ever played for! He told them they were wrong because as he said to them; "A players #1 job when he is up at the plate is to see the ball - but not just see the ball, but to see it WELL!"

So why am I telling you about players who don't hit well when they are being timed running to second or about some seminar I attended? Because when you are thinking - focusing on - "I need to get a good time running to second", 'I gotta get a hit", "I might strike out!", "I'm Hacking!", "Hit the ball hard", Hit the ball up the middle", "Wait for my pitch", "Stay relaxed", you are not controlling your focus. You need to control your focus on your number #1 job when you go up to the plate - which is seeing the ball - WELL! Because if you are not seeing the ball WELL you will not see if it's your pitch and you are not going to hit well!

So the next time you go up to the plate, instead of the old standard, "see the ball, hit the ball", say to yourself "Focus on seeing the ball, see the Ball, hit the ball".