We all know that great hitters have a compact, short, and "A to C" swing. But, how do we describe a the perfect swing to our players? What are the main coaching points? Here they are as I see them:

• The bat's barrel must take a direct path to the ball.
• The hands should be above the ball and the barrel of the bat should be above the hands.
• The barrel must be driven through the ball.
• The arms should extend only when the barrel contacts the ball and not before. Extending too soon creates a slow sweeping swing.
• The top hand's palm should be opened to face the ball when contact is made.

The arm's path should be in a circle that allows the hand to drop naturally downward.

If a pitcher takes the ball straight back without a downward motion, the arm must come out of that position with a bent elbow in order to make delivery to the plate. This causes the body to get ahead of the arm. The arm must be rushed to catch up. The result is a rapid flexion of the elbow and an enormous amount of stress on the elbow. The result is often an elbow injury.

REMEMBER: Coach your pitchers to seperate by taking the ball out of the glove in a downward direction and to create a circle path as the ball is taken back.

Coaching Tips

• The ball should be fielded about 6 to 12 inches in front of the glove-hand-side foot with the glove arm elbow bent slightly.
• Infielders should attempt to field the ball in the same part of the glove every time to insure that when the fingers of the throwing hand extract the ball they can easily find the ball and grip it quickly everytime.
• Anytime a runner is on base and a defensive infield player does not have a play on the batter the infielder should always make a full-arm fake throw to first base and check the lead runner. Sometimes you can catch the lead runner rounding a base and coming off too far and get an easy out.
• Fielding the ball 2 to 3 inches on the glove side of the midline of the body is best. This position softens the hands and allows for a quicker extraction. It also allows quicker recovery on a possible misplayed ball.

• When a catcher is having problems throwing accurately, it is often because of lead arm or glove hand problems. The catcher must keep the glove hand tucked when making a throw to second.
• Catchers must be taught to react first with their body and not with their hands.
• When a catcher retrieves a passed ball, he must always approach the ball with the ball on the glove side in order to be ready to open up to the plate in order to make a quick throw to the covering pitcher.