Seeing the Baseball – Vision Drills
- Head down at contact
- Throwing Numbers
Often when hitters have trouble timing the ball, the problem is that they are not seeing the ball the whole way from the pitchers hand to the contact area. Sometimes they are concentrating on “waiting” for the ball, which is usually a good thing, but they may forget to concentrate on the ball and time it out of the pitcher’s hand. This often leads to being late on the swing or being unable to pull the trigger on the pitch at all. The other more common vision problem comes from the hitter pulling their head and eyes with the swing and thus losing sight of the ball the last few feet before contact, causing the hitter to swing and miss or fail to make solid contact.
The above two drills give coaches a way of helping hitters watch the ball the whole way. The photo on the right has hitters calling out the number of fingers that the pitcher is throwing at them. Coaches can begin at a short distance away from the hitter and gradually move further back and can vary the speed of their arm when throwing the numbers. Over time, you will notice better focus by the hitters on the ball.
The second drill has hitters look at the object on the ground immediately after contact, before they are allowed to look and see where the ball was hit. This will not only help with hitters vision but also will force hitters to use the correct muscles to swing the bat. A long arm swing or oversinging will usually take their eyes away from the object on the ground.
The second drill has hitters look at the object on the ground immediately after contact, before they are allowed to look and see where the ball was hit. This will not only help with hitters vision but also will force hitters to use the correct muscles to swing the bat. A long arm swing or oversinging will usually take their eyes away from the object on the ground.
I like these drills — both make sense. Concentrated vision is so key — I work with young players all the time on that: look before you throw, then watch the throw get there. Distracted vision is so very common among young (& sometimes older) players. See my book Bushville by Jerry Kelly (Amazon has it) for more on this — and I have some web essays at http://xoxoxpress.com/extras/game/index.html
I’ll use these drills — with appreciation. JK