If you ever find yourself in a pit of quicksand, don't worry - it's not going to swallow you whole, and it's not as hard to escape from as you might think.
People who drown in quicksand are those who panic and begin flailing their arms and legs. The worst thing to do is to thrash around in the sand and move your arms and legs through the mixture. You will only succeed in forcing yourself farther down. The best thing to do is to make slow movements and bring your self to the surface. Then just lie back. You'll float to a safe level.
While quicksand remains to be a danger in adventure movies, there's very little to be afraid of in real life. As long as you keep a cool head in the situation, be patient, the worst result will be a shoe full of wet sand.
I got this information about quicksand off the internet. I’m sure by now you are asking yourself why is there an article about quick sand on a baseball web page. The answer is simple. Hitters usually react to their hitting failures the same why people do when they fall into quicksand. The minute they think they aren’t hitting the ball well they panic. Just like the person who falls into quick sand and immediately begins thrashing and flailing his arms, instead of thrashing their arms, hitters:
They never consider what is the best and easiest thing to do. What was the advice given if you fall into quick sand? The best thing to do is to make slow movements . Well guess what – that’s exactly what hitters need to do when they are not happy with their hitting or when they are making changes in their mechanics. Small steps, one thing at a time. If you feel you are not hitting well step back and think about, analyze, your at bats. Could it be something other than mechanics? And if you are working on your mechanics, ‘master’ one aspect and then move to the next. Take it slow – take your time.
It always amazes me that hitters immediately run to their batting coach when, in their mind, they aren’t hitting well. In their mind they are doing something physically wrong. They have fallen into quick sand. But the reality is they don’t understand why they aren’t hitting the ball well.
Some good reasons for not hitting the ball well could be:
Miss Timing the Pitch
It goes without saying that hitting a round baseball with a round bat is difficult. Especially when you go from the batting cage to game situations. Obviously the pressure is different but the degree of difficultly increases dramatically in a game because the pitchers goal is not to ‘groove’ a pitch right over the plate. A good pitcher tries to keep you off balance by changing speeds and locations. Or as I read in an article in Sports Illustrated that was analyzing the 2006 American League Playoffs, “The goal of both pitching staffs is the same: Get the hitters out of their comfort zone”.
Perry Hubbard, a researcher, conducted a 10 year study on the timing of hitters. To confirm his findings, he analyzed a 4 million pitch data base from Inside Edge, a company that tracks pitches and batter results in major league games.
As stated in the article entitled Effective Velocity, in the 10/1/06 issue of Collegiate Baseball, he discovered that how a pitch is viewed by hitters depends on the pitch location. Depending on the pitch location, a ball may look up to 4 more miles faster or slower than it’s actually speed. For example, a 90 mile an hour fastball will appear to be going 94 mph if thrown high and inside. And that same 90 mph pitch can appear to be going 86 mph if thrown low and outside.
And that’s a reason why you might miss time a pitch. As we know, swing early and you will pull the pitch, swing late and you push the ball to the opposite field. So in order to hit the ball ‘up the middle’ you need to be perfectly on time. Sounds easy enough. But just like a good batting average is .300 or actually failing 7 out of 10 times, the same is true with hitters being on time. Hubbard’s study discovered that hitters were not perfectly on time very often. In fact it was less than 10 percent of the time which equates to 1 for 10 or an .100 average.
This is why there are pitchers you face, that, before the game starts, you watch warm up and decide that he doesn’t throw that hard. You should hit him. But by the end of the game you’re walking away scratching your head questioning yourself why you didn’t get a hit. You swung through pitches and may have even put the ball in play but when the game was over you had nothing to show for your efforts.
The best example I can give you of a pitcher that is a master at making hitters miss time pitches is Greg Maddux. He is a 300 game winner that, when he entered the major leagues threw consistently a 91 – 92 mile an hour fast ball. Now, twenty years later his fastball averages 85 mph. He is still pitching – was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers mid 2006 where he helped them down the stretch - currently with the San Diego Padres. He’s still playing because as he said in a 2004 interview for Sports Illustrated; “I have to pitch better now than 10 years ago. I have to locate better because my stuff is not as good”.
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Geoff Jenkins describes the end result of Maddux’s ‘locate better’ attitude the best when he said; “He still keeps the ball down in the zone. I try to be aggressive against him and attack early in the count because the deeper you get in the count against him the more he seems to mess with you and out think you. It just seems like he hits his spots and all of a sudden it’s the end of the night and you have a comfortable O-fer.” Maddux is still pitching in the Major Leagues because he is a master of placing the ball where he wants it. Or put another way, Maddux is still pitching in the Major Leagues because he has mastered a way to have hitters miss time their swings and get them out of their comfort zone.
Not Tracking or Seeing the Ball Well
I’m sure you have heard coaches say “see the ball off your bat”. This is good advice but not for the reason you might think. As stated in an October 1, 2004 issue of Collegiate Baseball in an article entitled, Vision Training, “When a professional batter watches a pitcher throw a ball, he eventually loses sight of it 6 – 8 feet before the ball reaches home plate. Thus, when he swings …he is simply estimating where he thinks the ball will be when it crosses the plate 4/10ths of a second after the pitcher releases it”. This 6 – 8 feet before home plate is referred to as the hitters ‘blind zone’.
So you don’t actually physically see the ball go off the bat. But the reason why “see the ball off your bat” is still good advice is that what the coach really is trying to get you to do is to track the ball. Track the ball from the pitcher release point to your ‘blind zone’.
Ask yourself the following question; “What do I look at when I’m in the batters box waiting for the pitcher to throw the ball”? Got you thinking don’t I! That’s because few players know what they should do with their eyes when they are up at the plate. But if I ask about mechanics, most players, without hesitation, will have something to say. That’s because players spend a tremendous amount of time on mechanics and no time on visual skills. You can have the best mechanics in the world, but if you don’t see the ball you aren’t going to hit it. You need to understand that hitting is a visual skill.
There are two philosophies about what your eyes should be doing when you are in the batters box waiting for the pitcher to throw the ball. One is to pick out a spot on the Pitchers hat or face and use a ‘soft’ focus as he is getting the signs from the catcher and beginning his wind up. Just before the pitchers hand reaches his release point – the point at which he releases the ball – your eyes shift to a ‘hard focus’. You then track the ball from the release point as long as you can until the ball reaches your ‘blind zone’.
To help you understand the concept of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ focus, imagine you are looking through a cone towards the pitcher. When the smaller hole of the cone is placed in front of your eyes and the larger hole of the cone is aimed directly at the pitchers head or chest, this would be a ‘soft’ focus. Now reverse the cone – place the larger hole of the cone to your eyes and aim the smaller hole at the pitchers release point. This is ‘hard’ focus. You then track the ball done the ‘tunnel’ of the cone.
The second philosophy is to ‘scan’ or keep your eyes active. You don’t want to stare. You keep your eyes active by first starting at a location - a sign on the fence in the outfield or the pitchers feet. Then move them – maybe to the pitchers body or head and then to the release point. Keep them moving until you decide to shift to the release point.
Either way, it’s a step to help you see the ball better and either way you need to be sure to get your eyes to the release point at the right time. Just as critical it is to time a pitch, it’s also critical to time the shifting of your eyes to the release point. If you miss time and are too soon, your eyes will focus on a point past the pitcher. Because your eyes can’t focus on something that is not there, they zoom out beyond the pitcher to the next closest object. By the time your eyes come back they can’t readjust in time. And, if your eyes shift to the release point late, the ball has already traveled several feet before you can get a good look at it. Either way, early or late, when that happens, the ball will seem to be much faster than it actually is.
Now there is one thing for sure. And that is that the distance between home plate and the mound is 60 feet 6 inches. But when the pitcher strides, he releases the ball, out in front of his body - about 4 feet in front of the rubber. Then there is the 6 to 8 feet of the hitters ‘blind zone’ in front of the plate. If you subtract these figures from the total distance between home plate and the pitchers mound, that leaves the hitter only 48 feet to see the ball, track it and make a decision to swing or not swing.
Now consider miss timing shifting your focus. How many feet has the ball traveled before your eyes catch up to the ball? Three feet? Four Feet? Five Feet? There’s really no sure answer because it will probably be a little different each time. But one thing that is for sure is that, whatever the distance is, you must subtract it from the 48 feet. That now leaves the hitter less than 48 feet to see the ball, track it and make a decision to swing or not swing.
Think too much
The following is a description of a Major League player in the 2006 September 25th issue of Sports Illustrated. “The richest and most talented player in baseball was in trouble. He could not hit an average fastball, could not swat home runs in practice with any regularity, could not field a ground ball or throw from third base with an uncluttered mind and cooperative feet, could not step up to the plate without being booed and could not find full support in his own club house.
Know who it is? Did you guess Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees? Well that’s how Tom Verducci described him and his season up to late August 2006. To give you an example of how up and down his season was, in the month of May he was selected the American League Player of the Month, batting .330 with eight home runs and 28 RBI’s. But from June 1st to August 30th – in 80 games – he hit .257 with 81 strikeouts while committing 13 errors.
So what happened to the player that has accumulated extraordinarily good numbers during his career? Well it wasn’t, as the article stated, lack of effort, “If anything the 31 year old Rodriguez works too hard.” His team mate Johnny Damon had this to say;” His swing is so mechanical. He’s too good to be swinging like that. Just let it flow. See the ball and react.” Jason Giambi said “he’s guessing and doing a bad job of it”. His Manager Joe Torre felt he was predetermining what he was going to do when he went up to the plate. Or as Verducci described it; “Trying to catch up to fastballs, he started guessing and began his swing early, lunging at the ball with his hips drifting forward, creating a flaw that robbed him of even more power. Then as he carried the anxiety into the field, his usually reliable glove began to fail him”.
Some of the symptoms that a hitter shows when he is thinking too much are:
· taking a ‘grooved’ pitch for a third called strike – ‘paralysis by analysis’
· not willing to go deep in the count or swinging at first pitches – ‘fear of failure’
· swinging at pitches no were near the strike zone – guessing or predetermine that he is going to swing
· mechanical swings
So how does a player get to this point? In my opinion, the player consciously or sub conscientiously decides that his hitting is off. There’s something wrong. He has decided that it is not up to his standard or what, in his mind, is the standard that is expected of him. That expected standard could be what he thinks the coach, his team mates or maybe, when it’s a high school player, what his parents are looking for. This is the beginning of ‘fear of failure’.
And it can start with something as simple as an 0 for 5 day. The player’s perception is that he has had a bad day. The next practice he has to work harder. Every swing of the bat is judged. At the next game, every at bat now has a sense of urgency. He has to perform!! The danger in this mindset, which may be caused by a perception, is that the player ‘tries too hard’. He becomes too aggressive. Has less control.
And that happens because he lacks trust. He loses faith in his abilities. For example, he doesn’t trust himself to stay back and wait for the pitch. So he does what Alex Rodriguez was described doing; “began his swing early, lunging at the ball with his hips drifting forward, creating a flaw” in his mechanics. Or, in other words, his mechanics broke down.
Lack of trust puts doubt in your mind. It eliminates any clear thinking. You lose faith in your thought process thus it keeps you from making good decisions. For example, you decide in the batters box, that you are going to swing at the first pitch. The problem with this is that the body does what the mind tells it to do. So when the ball is pitched, the mind is telling the body to swing, not see the ball. You are not reacting to the pitch but rather to the decision to swing at the first pitch. You swing at pitches no where near the strike zone.
Doubt is the prime culprit for ‘paralysis by analysis. Not only don’t you have faith in your physical abilities but you also don’t have faith in your ability to recognize if the pitch is one you should swing at. So you subconsciously decide to put the decision in the umpire’s hands. And how do you do that? By deciding not to swing. And why do you do that? Because if you don’t swing and it’s a called third strike you can convince your self and save face by telling your team mates that it was a bad call. And if it’s a ball and its ball four, you haven’t failed. So not swinging may be a good decision.
Lack of trust breaks down muscle memory. To understand what I mean by this, you need to understand muscle memory. The following information is off the internet from a website called Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia source. ‘Muscle memory is fashioned over time through repetition of a given motor skill and the ability through brain activity to remember it. Muscle memory starts with the visual cue. As the brain processes the information about the desired activity and motion such as hitting a baseball, one then commits to that motion thought as correct’.
The two key phrases are Muscle memory starts with the visual cue and commits to that motion thought as correct.. To put them into context when it comes to swinging and hitting a baseball, the eyes see the ball – the visual cue - and the brain tells the muscles – to automatically swing like you remember - commits to that motion thought as correct.
But what happens if, instead of the brian sending the message ‘see the ball, hit the ball’, the brain is reminding the muscles about all of the mechanical adjustments to your swing that you have been working on in practice? Ever have a tape made of your swing? When the coach goes over the tape with you what does he do? He plays it in slow motion. And why does he do that? So that he can show and discuss step by step each aspect of your swing.
The body will do what the mind – your brain – tells it to do. So if your brian is not telling your body to see the ball hit the ball, then you short circuit or disrupt the message from your brain to your muscles. And if you go up to the plate thinking about the mechanics of your swing, you are doing what your coach did with the tape. Putting your muscle memory – your swing - in slow motion. Its no longer automatic – smooth, fluid. Instead, just like the video tape – one frame at a time - it becomes mechanical.
And lack of trust brings on a physiological element as well. Add this sense of urgency to the pressure of the games and you get tension. And when the body senses tension, it’s a physiological fact that, the muscles will tighten. Two things happen when your muscles tigten. First, you lose the ability to have a fluid swing. And second, because your eye movements are controlled by muscles, the efficiency of your eye movements goes down. They don’t work as well. It hinders your ability to see the ball well.
Another problem with thinking too much is that you forget or don’t focus on what your #1 job is as a hitter when you go up to the plate. 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 all of them and assured them that all of their answers were good answers. However he also told them they were all wrong. They were stunned. How could that be! Every answer they gave has been probably preached 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!"
When you think too much your thoughts have no direction. You are not focused on the ‘task at hand’. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Each year, for our Fall travel team, we prepare profile sheets for each player that we pass out 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 and a coach will pitch to them - throw a batting cage pitch. The players are instructed to hit the ball and to run from home to second – game situation – 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 need several pitches before they finally hit a fair ball. Rarely does anyone hammer the ball. 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. And 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?
This is why all of the answers the players gave in the seminar were wrong. Because when you are focusing on - "I
need to get a good time running to second", 'I gotta get a hit",
"I might strike out!", " have to make this pitch or we are going
to lose”, “I'm Hacking!", "Hit the ball hard", Hit the ball up
the middle", "Wait for my pitch", "Stay relaxed", you
are focused on the ‘end results’ and
not the task – which in this case is
hit the ball. Because in order to complete
the task with some degree of success - hit the ball - you need to see it
Another reason why you need to ‘zero in’ on seeing the ball WELL is that it helps eliminate you focusing on any negatives or the circumstances of the game. Thinking about seeing the ball well takes away time to think about errors, bad umpire calls, poor pitching or what the score is or we have to win this game to make play offs, etc.
Competition
As I already stated, every year for our Fall Travel team we provide a player profile of each player that we give to the college coaches. This profile also includes their battings stats from their high school and American Legion season. Again, keep in mind that the team is made up highly successful high school players. So they all have impressive batting averages, both high school and American Legion. About half way through the season, I will create a chart, listing each player, comparing their High School and American Legion batting average to their fall batting average. The results are the same every year. Fall batting averages are always at least 100 points below their high school and American Legion ones.
So why is that? Well, as we explain to the players, due to the nature of our program, every pitcher they face is some ones Ace. And by the way, due to the format of the showcases the team participates in, each game, they probably see three different pitchers – three aces. So unlike their high school and Legion season, they never see a ‘weak’ pitcher. Thus the answer to why the batting averages are lower is because of the competition.
While no pitcher is un - hittable, you have to be realistic about the talent level that you are facing. There is a reason why that ‘big name’ pitcher got his reputation. If you feel you had an off day against a pitcher who is not the ‘big name’ pitcher, keep in mind that every player, no matter what their talent level, has ‘his day’ – gets into a ‘zone’. Maybe this was the day he pitched the game of his life.
And even if he is an average pitcher, you are human. You are not perfect. Periodically you and your team mates are going to have a bad day. Go check the scorebook – I bet you weren’t the only one that had a bad day.
We had a player on our team this year that almost always, after each at bat that he didn’t get a hit or hit the ball hard, would ask me how his mechanics were. I said the same thing to him that I’m, trying to convey to you – Respect the effort of the pitcher. Tip your hat to him, he threw some good pitches. He got the better of you that time. The reality is, no matter how good you are, there are times that the pitcher will be right and you will be wrong. It has nothing to do with mechanics.
CONCLUSION
Be rational and not emotional about your at bats. Be rational about the effort. It’s okay to be emotional about the end result of the play but be logical about the end result of the swing. What do I mean by this? A line drive hit right at the fielder is an out. But that same ball hit two feet either way is a hit. The difference is the outcome. One is good and one is bad.
This is where emotions come into play. It’s natural to feel bad about the out. And you should because it has an effect on the game. But no matter the results, base hit or out, the swing mechanics, the effort was the same. You saw the ball well. It felt good. You knew once the ball went off your bat that you got good wood on it. Logic should tell you that the end result of the swing, whether the ball was caught or not, was good. Logic should tell you that a hard hit line drive out is a good at bat.
Be rational about your competition. Be aware of your thoughts. Are you really seeing the ball well? Don’t panic. Don’t assume it’s your mechanics. Because if you do the next time you go up to the plate you just might fall into some quicksand.