Posted by: andy (ameehan15@yahoo.com) on Thu Jun 7 12:54:33 2007

Ted Williams, in his book, The Science of Hitting, stated that you should always take the first pitch and that you should get a good ball to hit. Not a bad ball to hit. Not even a decent ball to hit. A good (I wish I could put this in italics) ball to hit. Firstly, do you believe know more than Ted Williams? And secondly, what's the point of swinging at something you don't like/can't hit well if the result is at most a sinlge base? Yes, perhaps the a run would score if a runner was on base, but that would require the pitch that is difficult for the batter to hit, to batted well, which often would fail, because its a difficult ball for the batter.
Kent, I think you should do nothing. You don't want your son to hack more if you tell him to be more aggressive, nor take alot of strikes that he can hit well because you said to take pitches. If he's doing well, just tell him to keep on doing what he's doing.

P.S.: Suppose there are guys on 1st and 2nd, and the batter draws a walk because none of the strikes thrown to him he can hit well. Thus the bases would be loaded. Then, the next batter pops out, because he swung at every strike? Who would be at fault here? You tell the first batter to drive in runs don't you? He does the opposite of popping out: He gets on base.
Criticizing someone for walking with men on base is ridiculous. Can't the next batter get the RBI(s)?