Posted by: Jude (wayout1@columbus.rr.com) on Wed Mar 24 17:20:40 2010

Dear Mom,

See if this helps. It is from a book written by Charlie Lau. The book is titled: The Art of Hitting .300.

LEARNING To Roll

"So there are a lot of good reasons to be afraid, but none that I can think of for not admitting the fact. And that really is the first step in coping with the problem.

The second step is to review your mechanics, particularly your balance. A young player who doesn't know anything about balance will tend to stand up straight and bend back away from the plate if he's frightened of a pitch. It feels safer to him than being bent forward, but it's the wrong thing to do.

It's not a natural reaction to lean automatically over home plate and thus toward the path of the ball. Either consciously or subconsciously, a lot of players want to be as far away from where the ball comes in as they can get. But there's a very good reason for bending forward at the waist, over and above the fact that it helps you hit the ball.

When you're bent over and in the proper stance, you're balanced. And as you know by now, that makes it possible for you to move - in this case, to move out of the way of the ball if necessary. It doesn't do much good to rear straight up since, with your feet planted and the top half of your body moving in that direction, you won't be able to go anywhere.

In the proper stance, your knees are slightly bent, your top half is leaning forward,and your eyes are on the ball. If you take your stride and the ball looks as though it's coming for you, you can easily turn your upper bady back toward the catcher. This is called rolling, and it's something every player should learn to do almost by reflex. A roll is just a quick quarter turn with your upper body. You don't have to move your feet at all. It's the fastest, easiest, most effective way to protect your head and upper body. Rolling takes you out of harm's way, but if you do get hit, it lets you "take the punch" where it will cause the least trouble - on your front leg or on the tip of your shoulder for instance. That's not fun, but it's a lot better than getting it in the head or the chest, which can happen if you rear straight up instead of rolling.

Of course, to be effective, this technique must be practiced, just as you practice other elements of hitting. I think that often the anxiety about getting hit makes you imagine that it's worse than it actually is. And in a way, you're kind of relieved once it happens. It hurts plenty, but you find that you can take it. Getting hit in the head is a different story, but batting helmets have been a big help in this regard.

One drill I've found to work especially well in developing a batter's ability to roll involves throwing tennis balls instead of baseballs. With a young batter, I'd start by standing relatively close and throwing easy. Then I'd back off and gradually throw harder. It's got to be a progression. When using this drill I throw strikes just as in batting practice, but every now and then I try to hit the batter. His job is to roll each time he sees the ball coming at him. Usually it doesn't take too long for this to become a reflex. And besides showing the batter how to protect himeslf, it also develops his confidence. Once he knows he can get out of the way of a pitch, he can be more positive and aggressive.