Super Slam Ball: SSB FAQ's: Beginners should bat left-handed
Thursday, January 4Beginners should bat left-handed
Taken from "John T. Reed's Youth Baseball Coaching" Book. Reposted on 1/4/07.
I and my two oldest sons bat right handed. My youngest son however, bats left-handed. The reason is I got over being dumb by the time he started playing baseball.
Before you decide this is nutty, let me point out that I submitted an article on this to American Baseball Coaching Digest. no only did they print it, but Collegiate Baseball Newspaper reprinted it. Those are the two top baseball periodicals in the world.
I got zero criticism and a few attaboys. No less an expert than St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony Larussa told me he agreed with everything I said in the article, except that he liked switch hitting better than I do. If I coached in the pros, I might like switch hitting, too. But in youth baseball, switch hitting is a grotesque waste of time.
10 reasons for batting left-handed.
1. Closer to the bases.
2. Finish swing facing 1st base.
3. See pitch better if opposite the pitcher.
4. Home plate is not an obstacle to a left-handed batter.
5. Left handed batters can drag bunt.
6. Left-handed is better for pull hitters.
7. Opposite-handed hitters have an easier time hitting breaking balls.
8. Left-handed batters block catcher's line of sight to first-base runner.
9. Left-handed batters are in the way of coaching a of right handed throwing catcher.
10. Most batters are right-eyed dominant and therefore hit better left-handed.
Your natural side:
I asked three former Major Leaguers what they thought of my idea and everyone should bat left-handed. They all thought each player should bat from their "natural side".
And how do we determine that? The kid must be free of any outside influences. On seeing baseball on TV. No parents, friends, siblings or other relatives teaching him how to bat. What do we do, put each three year old on a desert island with a bat and continuously running pitching machine, then come back in a year or two to see which side they chose to bat from?
In the real world, kids do not choose which side to bat from. Somebody chooses for them - generally some highly qualified baseball expert like a fellow five year old or an older kid or relative.
That person usually teaches the kid to bat the same way they do, with no effort whatsoever being made to ascertain what the new player's "natural side" is. In most cases, the new player is asked whether he is right-handed or left-handed, then led to that side of the plate.
I do not believe there is a "natural side". If there were, switch hitting would be impossible. But even if there is a "natural side" and its advantages outweigh all the advantages of batting left-handed, it does not matter, because there is not way to find out what a player's natural side is. Choosing a side to bat from happens at the pre-school level far from the eyes of anyone who knows what he is doing. By the time most players first meet a competent coach, they have long since become addicted to batting right-handed.
The only thing right-handed about right-handed batting is your right hand is the top hand. So what? If you take your top hand off the bat in your follow through, your left hand is on the bat the longest-if you bat "right-handed".
Let's look at it in segments. What happens from the waist down is that you shift your weight from your back foot to your front foot. That would be the same as walking or ice-skating. Do you walk right-handed? Do you ice skate right handed?
How about the upper body? Ever hear a figure-skater commentator talk about a right-handed spin by a skater?
Moving to the arms, right-handed tennis players do indeed swing like right-handed batters when they hit a forehand stroke. But they only use one hand. In baseball, you hit with two hands. So how can there be such a thing as right-handed or left-handed batting? You bat both handed.
Finally, people believe that you have to bat right-handed if you are right-side dominant because you have to throw with your dominant side. Throwing is a one-handed activity, that's why you always use your dominant side arm to throw.