Baseball Hitting Aids For Any Back Yard

By Agnes Dickson


Hitting tools can help hone a young batter's inherent talent and make the best of it soonest. Keen vision and quick reflexes certainly don't hurt when it comes to teeing the ball, but a balanced and disciplined swing is essential. The only way to cultivate that fine a swing is through many repetitions, and a great many repetitions is difficult to maintain if the youngster is forever gathering baseballs from the outfield. Baseball hitting aids are a good resource for gaining repetitions.

A good place to begin might be with perhaps the simplest aid of all, the everyday batting tee. It does just what a golf tee would do but holds the ball higher, usually between thirty and forty-five inches high. This is a good range for younger hitters just perfecting their stroke.

With a portable screen added to hitting practice, a batter can not only use the tee all afternoon but won't have to interrupt practice by spending time going out after the balls he or she has crushed. Many nets also have brightly colored targets that are stitched into the net to show the player where and how well they are nailing the ball. Screens and tees are useful for practicing both baseball and softball, and are typically built to stay put on windy days.

A swing tee lets one avoid the whole problem of netting the struck ball after it has been struck. With a swing arm tee the ball is firmly fixed to the arm that itself is designed to swing around while rooted to an axis. The ball just springs right back after being whipped around in a tight circle once the young hitter crushes it.

Many versions of the batting tee are good for sharpening a hitter's form using repetitions, but none of them simulate the reality of being thrown to by an actual pitcher. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get the repetitions one really needs when relying on others to pitch, especially repetitions in getting a feel for the strike zone and knowing just when to swing. This is where a pitching machine becomes useful.

Many automatically think of the automatic pitching machine as something likely to be expensive, priced to where one wouldn't own one unless running either a batting range or a ball club. Today, however, home-appropriate pitching machines just for younger smaller players are readily available. Many are almost as inexpensive as the glove or the bat, constituting some of the least expensive, but most valuable, pieces of hitting training equipment.

One might look to buying protection nets for the back yard, looking like rooms or hallways woven out of fishing nets, for practicing with a pitching machine or with a practice pitcher. Those who don't mind something more pricey can look to the packages of equipment, quite often sponsored by a big name star. With packages one does see more of a difference between baseball and its cousin, softball.

Much equipment once available only to the professionals is now ready for home use. It has been brought down from man-size to boy-size and girl-size, but is still tough enough to take the punishment. These are a useful set of tools to sharpen players' talent, all across the country and all across the world.




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