Posted by: skip (piks5@sbcglobal.net) on Wed Mar 28 05:19:11 2007

> > I do agree that with gifted athletes an advanced skill can be learned and implemented in the right situations. As well we do have bigger and earlier developing kids. Can you justify teaching a power hitting style to the whole team. It seems like such a blanket thing to do when you consider that all hitters have their own style. I just worry about the bad habits that the new teaching techniques have caused from my prospective. Some of it I will acknowlage is coaches misinterpreting the style. I would say teach the kids to put the ball in play and as they progress let them get to more and more challenging skills. Thanks for the response!
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> Abby. We should remember that many coaches at the lower effort were not great hitters. In fact many are only adults who happen to care enought to take time out of their schedules to make a difference. Thus inherent limitations will always exist.
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> But every kid will not be a power hitter as you have alluded. And the point of sports is to allow kids to experience a positive playful experience in which the effort to compete, develop sportsmanship, and learn the concept of finishing what you start by dealing with victory as well as defeat.
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> But each coach has his own philosophy on what should be stressed. For some coaches it may be power. For others it may be winning. Also some coaches are living unfulfilled dreams through the kids. This is not to say that either way is definitely right or wrong. The ultimate judge is the results that follow what is taught. And as long as each kid has a positive result that is all that can be expected from non professional teachers.

Hitting Guru, et al: In a linear world, I can't envision trying to convert an entire team of, say, 13-14 yr olds, to a new way of initiating and
executing a swing. It's daunting enough to do this with my own 12 yr old, where I have daily one-on-one and the full support of his Dad (me).

To me the prime law of baseball coaching is the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm." I would consider it harmful to take a linear kid who hits OK and then to incompletly convert him to the Batspeed approach. I say incompletely because of inadequate time, one-on-one, parental/peer support, and long =-term follow-up (to continue the "medical" analogy).

I"m a coach of a talented travel team. I see some swings there that would benefit from the Batspeed techniques. But there's no way I'm going to do this. I wouldn't have the guts to do an overhaul on anybody's swing other than my son's.

Regards, Skip