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 Baseball Tips! |
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Tuesday, March 28
Spring 2006 Season Opens for STARS in April Fool’s Tournament This Weekend
(click on title above for latest tournament schedule)
After several months off since the Fall, the STARS travel to Lehigh County, PA for their first tournament in the Spring 2006 season. The ECTB April Fool’s Tournament initiates an abbreviated Spring season for the STARS, who will play in only 4 tournaments during April and May. School and local baseball programs are making stronger demands for our talented players for which the STARS are ready to oblige. STARS power baseball will resume late summer and into the Fall in PA, DE and MD.
This weekend, however, the focus is on the April Fool’s tournament that will play in Allentown and include 10 teams from PA, NY and CT.
As of Monday 3/27, the current schedule is as below, providing the weather cooperates this weekend. Note that this tournament is only a 3 GAME MINIMUM. Directions to the Allentown fields will be provided under the Field Locations heading on the left or by clicking the game on the Stars calendar.
Sat., 4/1, 9:00am STARS vs. Connecticut Titans @ ECTB Bicentennial Stadium
Sat., 4/1, 1:00pm STARS vs. Pennsylvania Patriots @ Keck Park 1
Sun., 4/2, TBD depending on seedings
Sun., 4/2, TBD depending on prior game results
2006 Winter Workout & Spring Training for the STARS
Beginning January 13th, 2006 the PlayBall STARS 14U begin their winter workout and Spring training at the PlayBall! Facility, Carroll St, Reading, PA. Our training will consist of conditioning drills, hitting, working with pitchers & catchers, throwing, fielding and situations. We will have the entire facility to ourselves on Fridays and Sundays.
Our training schedule will be as follows:
>>> Fridays, 7:30-9:30pm (ran by coaches)
>>> Sundays, 3:30-5:30pm (ran by coaches)
>>> Tues or Thurs, 6-8pm (you pick, ran by PlayBall facility)
Dress in layers, bring water/gatorade, bring all equipment including a wooden bat!
See you there STARS!!
Why You Should Hit Line Drives & Grounders
(taken from Todd Williams, author of Baseball's Best Drills, Tips & Strategies)
Do you seem to have an upper cut swing and fly out a lot of the time?
By hitting the ball squarely with a level swing, the resulting hit will tend to be a bouncing ball or linedrive through the infield and into the outfield, and often clear to the fence if hit in the outfield gaps. And the more solid the contact, the better chance of the hit making getting through the defense - even a very good defense.
Here’s some data that might surprise you. Most NCAA Division 1 studies indicate something near the following:
* 30% of all grounders are base hits and over 40% of the time result in the batter getting on base,
* a whopping 80% of all line drives are base hits resulting in the batter getting on base 80% of the time;
* Only 20% of all fly balls, including home runs, are base hits, resulting in the batter getting on base just under 30% of the time.
There’s just something about forcing one player to cleanly field a ground ball, make an accurate throw to another player who then has to make a clean catch. More things can go wrong for the defense, and right for you! Even better, if you can turn your hits into line drives, you’ve got it made.
Fly balls, on the other hand, are just easier for defenses to track down, get underneath, and catch.
So, the next time you want to really "juice" the ball and use that upper cut swing, remember why grounders and especially line drives are really the way to go. High on-base percentages followed by hits are what win ball games.
The Hardest Task in Sports
Photo courtesy Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Braves outfielder Chipper Jones at bat
| Even the best batters in Major League Baseball today get a hit only about 38 percent of the time at best. Most players only get a hit 25 percent of the time. Why are such poor numbers considered successful, or at least adequate? It is because hitting a small sphere moving at 90+ miles per hour (145+ kph) with a round stick is the hardest thing to do in sports?
According to Robert Adair, author of The Physics of Baseball, a baseball thrown at 95 mph (153 kph) reaches home plate in 0.4 seconds. In that split second, a batter must determine where the ball is and where it will be when it reaches home plate. He then must swing the bat so that it connects with the ball at the exact moment the ball reaches home plate.
The task of hitting a ball is made even more difficult because pitchers have developed special pitches to deceive batters. There are changeup pitches, which is when the pitch appears to be faster than it is. A curveball is, as it sounds, a ball that curves in toward or away from the batter. A third deceptive pitch is the slider that comes in like a straight fastball, but then suddenly drops down a few inches.
All of these factors combine to make hitting the ball a very difficult task.
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Looking For More Hits?
Hitters Tips:
Teach yourself to read pitchers! Learn to see the ball come out of the pitcher's hand. This gives you more time to read and react.
• A fastball will be thrown with the index and middle fingers behind the ball so you will see a lot more "white" of the baseball at release. It will come out of the pitcher's hand in a downward plane.
• A breaking ball will be thrown with the index and middle fingers on the "outside" of the ball so you will see a lot less "white." It will come out of the pitcher's hand in an upward arc to give it time to "bite."
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