Focused Hitting From a Tee Drill, or Hitting China
In the hitting off a tee drill, we use a hitting tee that has
5 positions. Inside front and back, center, and outside front
and back.
Place the ball on the tee and take 5 swings with the tee in all
5 positions. This shows the player the proper place over the plate
where a pitched ball thrown to different locations should be hit.
When done properly, balls hit from the inside tees will be pulled,
center will be hit straight away, and outside will be hit to
opposite field.
Tell the hitter to focus his eyes on the center of the ball.
We use yellow rubber balls from a hitting machine and in the
middle of each ball is a small circle, usually with Made in China
written in the circle. I tell the hitter to focus his eye contact
on China and to hit China.
It's a lot of fun for the kid to "hit China".
You can also use a baseball and tell the hitter to focus on
a particular seam or to hit the ball between the seams. I used
to draw faces on the balls and tell them to hit his face which
was also fun for the kids to do, or you can put small colored circles
on the balls.
After the 5 positions are completed, then place the ball on the
center tee position. Tell him to focus on China. Then have the
hitter close his eyes and tell him to see China in his mind.
Then tell him to see the bat hit China in his mind.
Once the hitter visualizes this, then have him hit China with his
eyes closed. This works really well and you'll see that most
hitters can hit the ball square dead center better with their
eyes closed. They aren't thinking....they are focusing.
You can't think and hit.
We also use a variation of this by placing the tee next to a
batting cage netting or a hitting screen and have them do the
fence drill off the tee. Then we do it with the hitter's eyes
closed.
You can also do this using a tee ball bat and using only the
lead hand on the bat.
Dave Cole
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See Also: Fence
Hitting Drill
Baseball Articles
Baseball Drills