It's baseball season, and you are ready for it. You bought a new bat, dusted off the cleats, and oiled the glove. You drilled, grounder after grounder, only to follow it by fly ball, after fly ball. When the fielding drills were over, you moved on to the batting cages. You have hit so many balls that you could probably tag a slider in your sle

A key part to any good training program is to know the current status of an athlete with regards to their strengths and weaknesses. How fast is the athlete now! How agile is the athlete! What is their reaction time like? Are they fast only over a short distance or do they possess speed-endurance! Does the lack of good flexibility inhibit their abil

In Bean Town, even coming off a World Series triumph with another awesome pitching rotation (the second World Series victory in four years after their excruciating drought) there will always be anxiety about what lies ahead in 2008. Are the Red Sox the favorite again for the new year; and equally - if not more - important, did the Red Sox do mo

The Braves make the NBA Playoffs nothing to me. Boring and commercialized beyond belief. The fact that our own Phoenix Suns have been eliminated because they couldn't play defense... Well, they all should have learned from the Phoenix Indian School Braves. At the property that is now Indian School Steele Park, northeast of the intersection

Ah, the plight of a Chicago Cubs fan. Each new season holds the reassuring promise that we will, once again make an emotional investment in a team that has the ability to bring us from the hopeful adrenaline rush of saying, 'Oh my God, I think this is really going to be the year,' to the bankrupt emptiness of watching another team, once again, achi

It would be nice that there was one equation to decide for each of us what the perfect baseball bat would be. A formula that takes into consideration the basic statistics of height, age, skill level and strength. Fortunately we are all unique, my hand is similar but not exact to your hand. The power in my grip is better than some and worse than

For what ever the reason, nearly every person who has played baseball runs into a slump. The prospect of buying a base hit is all that seems left for the player to get past the desperation of hitting anything. Pressure placed upon ourselves for letting the team down, pressure from out statistics going in the toilet and pressure from teammates; w

It is a tight game and the batter is a known bunter. Third and Second baseman are playing in on the grass in anticipation. The Pitcher delivers an inside fastball. Just as the Pitchers arm is ready to release the batter squares around and shows bunt. Third base crashes down to gather up the ball which takes a funny hop to the infield away from

Back to 1974, East Tacoma Washington, it is game day, almost 10am. As Players and Parents cross the parking lot, silver haired seniors begin to gather at the fringe of the field. For them between the talking and their pace, it will still be 10 more minutes or so before they reach the bleachers. For the seniors there are no pressures to finish a

Banjo hitters are always on the look out for hot bats to get them out of the cellar. What they do not realize is that getting on base at a higher frequency outweighs the over the wall thrill of crushing the baseball. At the amateur level the playing field was leveled by having bats certified. The figures and ratios for these different levels of

Juicing in baseball occurs on two levels. First is the newer baseballs with composite rubber compounds that enable the ball to behave stronger. Better flight and response to the bat which results in more home runs. Second, juicing the player with steroids for increase red blood cells that allow more oxygen metabolizing and muscle growth. For any

Off the wall in left center, the fielder scoops up the ball as the runner approaches third. The Catcher has aligned the cut off man for a straight ball path from the fielder to home plate. Center fielder drills the ball to the cutoff man with all his might. Cutoff man does the two step shuffle, catch, shuffle throw and off goes the frozen rope to h

The shift from 1974 to 2007 has been dramatic. Baseball once relegated to the dreams and comforts of summer is now a year round ambition for a surprising large number of players. Not only for paid players but for the amateurs as well. Way back when, well if you were born after 1985, pre baseball season followed the winter sports of basketball an

For Successful Hitting,in my opinion, there are numerous hitting methods and styles that exist for baseball. They all claim the same thing: that they are the best; who is right and who is wrong? They all can work depending on the ability of the individual. Individual style from how you lace your cleats to the position of your hat and the 400 or so

When teaching baseball or any other sport regardless of age, the players in ability to understand what the coach is trying to express is sole responsibility of the coach. Teaching involves respect, clarity, organization, motivation and context. People learn by example, Coaches who are respectful of children are not just modeling a skill or behav