It’s like they come to the realization that they are pretty dang good and they can have A LOT more success if they just choose to be more courageous in the box. It’s like they just needed a little permission to let it fly. Once they do, you can see their faces light up. Maybe I should try and make contact.” As we keep pushing and encouraging, they eventually buy in.
“ Would if I swing and miss?” “I don’t know if I can hit a grand slam. As we encourage our hitters and inspire them to think bolder, they all initially question their own abilities. To help our hitters think more boldly, we have been emphasizing the following phrase: Fortune favors the brave. I take that back…lets just try and make contact or put the ball in play.” As unsettling as these answers have been, they have opened the door to awesome conversations and an opportunity for Dave and I to inspire our hitters to be more courageous in the box.
Some hitters even started with a solid answer, and then completely on their own, took the answer back and replaced it with something a little “safer.” To provide an actual example from the other day…one hitter literally said, “Hit a dinger.” That was the first answer I got that was positive, so I was pumped and was just about to compliment the heck out of him…just as I was about to open my mouth and tell him great job, he goes, “Actually, no, never mind. The following are the main answers I have heard: “ To not strike out” “To draw a walk” “To not get out” “Just make contact” “Hopefully put the ball in play” “Hit the ball and just try to drive in 1 run” “Make contact and hope the ball drops for a hit” I am completely serious when I say probably over 90% of the hitters I asked (and I’ve asked easily over 100 hitters) had an answer that was in line with one of the quotes above. The experiment I chose to run was to simply ask our hitters one question: “Bases loaded and nobody out…what’s your goal in that situation?” The answers have been extremely unsettling and have revealed a lot about the overall mindset of youth ball players. Seeing that defensive and timid process play out all too often, I wanted to run a little experiment to get a feel for where hitters are at with their mentality in the box. When mistakes are made, it’s rarely because the hitter is being overly aggressive…usually, the mistakes are made because the hitter is being too defensive in the box. I see too many hitters playing the game way too defensively.
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