Don, Mattingly always understood the right way to swing the bat. He knew how to use the tools of the trade to his advantage. And the never wasted an at bat—he made every pitch count.
Bobby Abreu: As he finishes his swing, he’s looking up for the ball in perfect balance.
The only way to apply the solid foundation of hitting is with a fluid, controlled, and relaxed swing. That’s a given, and yet one of the biggest problems facing young and old hitters is that they grip the bat way too tight.
All this talk about proper mechanics and the foundation of hitting goes out the window if you are squeezing the bat instead of applying a relaxed grip. Let the bat feel loose in your hands so that the wrist action is like casting a fishing line or popping a whip. Casting a fishing line calls for a flick of the wrist. The same flick-of-the-wrist technique applies to swinging a baseball bat.
Study and analyze the hitting style of Bobby Abreu of the Yankees, to appreciate a relaxed approach. Bobby has no unnecessary movement in his swing to take away from that straight-line and bottom-hand-to-the-ball swing. And he is consistent with that flick-of-the-wrist motion to produce bat speed and fluidity.
Remember that the goal is to find a bat that’s not too heavy or too light. We want a bat that feels comfortable in our hands.
The length and weight of the bat are two important variables that allow a hitter to develop a relaxed, smooth, quiet swing.
This is comparable to testing the weight of a suitcase. You know how, when you pick up a bag that has too much stuff crammed into it, it feels too heavy when you lift it off the floor? The goal is to pack a bag that you can carry comfortably when running to catch a flight. Same thing with a wet, soggy baseball—you try to throw it and somehow it just doesn’t feel right in your hand because it’s too heavy for proper mechanics. Pick a bat that’s comfortable for both its weight and length. You don’t want a bat that’s so heavy it will drag through the zone.
The right weight will enable you to extend the barrel of the bat out over the plate to hit bullets to all fields. Many players favor light bats to get a sense of control and to improve contact.
Another line drive from Tony Gwynn. Notice the head position—head and eyes down on the ball.
TONY GWYNN: I discovered the light bat when I was playing at San Diego State University, and where I now coach the baseball team. Before going to college I used any bat that was available—I wasn’t too picky.
I hit .301 my sophomore year at SDSU—not bad, but nothing special if the goal is to get drafted and play pro ball. I just kind of viewed it as a shaking off the rust from skipping baseball during my freshman year.
Coming back the next season, I immediately got thrown into the batting cage to work on my stroke. My old aluminum model from sophomore year (34 inches, 32 ounces) had a big dent in it, so I had to find a new bat.
I went into the cupboard at the San Diego State University locker room. I was looking around, and found this little 32-inch, 31-ounce bat. I pulled it off the rack and just fiddled with it in my hands and thought, “This bat feels so good; I wonder if I can hit with this thing?"
So I brought it into the batting cage, and right away I’m stinging the ball. I’m hitting line drives all over the place. From that point on, I was more conscious of the weight and length of the bat. I suddenly began to notice the bat size used by the other guys on the team. A typical light aluminum model was 34 inches and 29 ounces—that’s a big difference between weight and length—while my bat, at 32 inches and 31 ounces, had a much closer ratio of inches to ounces.
The plan is to head to the plate with a bat that builds confidence. Consistency is the key to success. It doesn’t matter if the pitcher is right-handed or left-handed, a flame-thrower or a soft-tosser; either way, you want the same swing and the same solid approach every time.
The other players were getting “whip action” with the longer bat, but there wasn’t enough weight in it to have a positive impact on their swing.
The moral of that story is that you want to find a bat that feels right to you the first time you pick it up and test it out. A bat that’s too light can do more harm than good. You want to swing a bat that has enough weight to drive the ball and to make consistent contact.
I would do this only by chance, not by design. There’s nothing wrong with trying new bats if they feel right to you. I’d pick up a bat from Willie Randolph by mistake and think, “This thing feels good.” And so I’d use it in games for a couple of days with varying degrees of success. A different bat gives you a different feel. But it’s funny how, a day or two later, you want to go back to your own bat—the one that worked for you over time.
Don’t make a conscious decision to swing a new bat when you’re in a slump. You might be messing around with another bat and give it a try, but that’s not the plan typically to break out of a slump.
The plan is to head to the plate with a bat that builds confidence. Consistency is the key to success. It doesn’t matter if the pitcher is right-handed or left-handed, a flamethrower or a soft-tosser; either way, you want to use the same swing and the same solid approach every time. And that means using the same bat, whose weight gives you a sense of control.
For an ideal grip, you want the bat in your fingertips to allow for proper use of your hands. The V-grip bat is the perfect way to allow kids to understand and apply the concept of putting the bat in the fingertips and lining up the knuckles.
Grip is the key to success or failure with any bat. When I was coaching my kids back in Evansville, Indiana, I noticed that they would always squeeze the bat too hard rather than apply a relaxed grip. What’s more, kids can’t understand the concept of putting the bat in the fingertips and lining up the knuckles. For proper knuckle alignment, you want to line up the middle knuckles of your fingers on both hands.
I started wondering about the possibility of a bat design that would automatically set the right knuckle alignment and fingertip grip.
It all started when a company came to spring training one year and they had made a bat with an ax-handle grip. I loved the way it felt in my hands. It put the bat right in my fingers, and I was a guy who had a tendency to press the bat back against my thumb; I wore a thumb guard to actually push the bat into my fingers. All hitting instructors talk about the need to get the bat into your fingers. It’s an essential element of a proper grip to swing a bat with that relaxed swing we strive for.
Unfortunately, the bat this company produced with the ax-handle grip was like hitting with a two-by-four. The back part of the bat had that grip so it was almost square—it just buried my thumb, so it was impossible to use in game situations.
I filed this bat idea away for many years without giving up on the goal to produce a bat that would line up the knuckles and protect the thumbs from punishment.
I had retired from baseball and was living in Evansville, raising horses and enjoying spending time with my family, when one day a friend of mine—Jerry “Peanut” Gaines, a sheriff from Bowling Green, Kentucky—stopped by to tell me he knew a carpenter who wanted to show me a special bat. I wasn’t interested in his bat but he clearly knew how to work with wood, so I had a good idea: I asked him to make a bat that would automatically put the knuckles and fingertips in the right place. He came back two weeks later with a prototype; we tweaked the design, and it was pretty nice. I started hitting with it a little bit, just to try it out, to see if I was going to hurt my thumb and figure out if it fit right in the fingertips. I liked it! I asked him to make me a few of these bats for the kids, so they could give it a try, and I also had him make some shorter bats (30 inch) for short-bat drills.
That’s how Mattingly Baseball got started. Once we had the prototypes figured out, we got a patent and decided to move forward with the idea of making bats to get more kids to try this new design. It’s funny because I started this company out of a simple idea to help my kids use their hands better on the bat, to make hitting easier and more comfortable. But you put the bat in your hand and the first thought that pops in your head is, “This is perfect. It fits right in the fingertips. You don’t have to think about what you’re doing; the bat does everything for you.”
The V-bat is a useful tool to improve your grip on the bat in much the same way that batting gloves protect your hands from injury and slipping off of the bat. I didn’t start wearing batting gloves until I was drafted by the New York Yankees and shipped out to Oneonta in the New York--Penn League. Part of my reason for going with batting gloves was the switch from aluminum bats in high school to wooden bats in pro baseball.
With aluminum bats, you don’t have as much of a need to wear batting gloves. If your hands get all sweaty in the hot, humid summer weather, then batting gloves would make sense to give you a firm grip. If you don’t feel comfortable with the batting gloves, though, you should not force yourself to wear them just because you think it’s the right thing to do. It all comes down to comfort and grip.
Keep in mind that, whichever bat you use, batting gloves will protect your hands from blisters, injury, and discomfort over a long season of games, practice, and drills.
All players have their own likes and dislikes in glove design. I prefer gloves that fit tight, with no loose fabric hanging off the end of the fingers. Look for gloves that are perfectly aligned to the contours of your hands; excess fabric will move around on your hand while you swing the bat.
There’s no question that you have to make an adjustment when going from aluminum to wood. I believe that you are better off learning to hit with a wooden bat; you can feel it when you hit the ball dead on the nose. With aluminum, you can hit the ball a long way even if you hit the ball on the label or all the way down on the handle. In other words, with aluminum, you can make mistakes and still hit the ball hard.
But the popularity of aluminum bats has more to with economics than performance. With aluminum, you can be sure that you’ll use only one bat the entire baseball season. But I favor practicing with wood, in the hitting drills that we’ll discuss in chapter 5.
A college player at V. Miami using an aluminum bat; even if you play with aluminum at your school, you would benefit by practicing with wood bats.
An aluminum bat virtually takes away the ability for a pitcher to bust you inside. He can jam you with that inside pitch and, thanks to your aluminum bat, you’ll still be able to do something good and make contact.
Aluminum bats have created a generation of hitters who dive out over the plate and a generation of sinkerball specialists who try to induce batters to swing at pitches in the dirt.
In college baseball, you see a lot of hitters who dive out over the outside pitch; they can go the other way with authority and hit with power to the opposite field, but they can’t handle the inside pitch. And by the time they make it to pro ball, it’s an adjustment to face a pitcher who knows how to pitch inside. The truth is, you have to go back to basics when you switch from aluminum to wood, as the days of getting by on those aluminum-bat fluke hits are long gone.
Rod Carew, my role model and my baseball hero while I was growing up in Indiana, always talked about the importance of taking care of your bats. Experiment with pine tar, tape, or stickum on the handle. Try different combinations to figure out what will work best for a firm grip.
I preferred a first baseman’s glove that was just a little bit longer than average—a long-and-narrow scoop-style glove.
Selecting the right bat or the perfect glove all comes down to what works best for your game. Keith Hernandez, the top fielding first baseman in the National League while I was playing in the American League in the eighties, used a different model than I did. The decision boils down to what works best for your style of play, but the key is to take care of your glove so it will last a long time.
My model was even bigger than Keith’s “Big Dipper,” as I preferred a long-and-narrow scoop-style first baseman’s glove. It’s a personal deal.
Notice Keith Hernandez’ balance: He has already hit the ball, and yet he is still in balance as he’s taking off to run to first base.
Keith was a great clutch hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets. His greatness as a fielder was based on balance, quickness, reflex response and intelligence. He was able to field bunts on the third-base side of the diamond and throw runners out at third. That was more of a National League--type of play back in the eighties. He was able to cheat over to third and make those incredible plays on guys who had a rep as good bunters (there were fewer good bunters in the American League in the eighies).
Keith and I used to put one leg in foul territory while holding a runner on at first. As a left-handed-throwing first baseman, I squared up to take a throw over from the pitcher. This “squaring up” is very much the same as the correct approach to hitting—if you are trying to hold a runner on and you have both feet in fair territory and you are also trying to tag the runner, well, on a bad throw you can’t maneuver. So to be square, I wanted one foot outside of the line in foul territory while I could look directly at the pitcher.
The whole game of baseball is based on being in balance—fielding, running, and hitting all depend on balance, and that’s what will determine your progress and success in everything you do on the baseball field.
