What I Know and Remember About Baseball – Seasons
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 and in some areas soccer. As each team sports season has gotten longer in all age groups, with the exception of high school sports, the down time and need for pre season conditioning has diminished.
Many training exercises in other sports cross over. Running, sprint training and over all conditioning are several of the cross over items. Some movements are directly related to baseball while others a good for general athletic mobility. Team sports predominately have the athlete in a upright athletic position. Back straight, knees bent, weight forward on the toes.
Fielding, butt down hands out, and batting are the most notable baseball specific activity. Time should be set aside every couple of weeks to reacquaint the muscles with those movements. Simple stationary fielding drills in the back yard are excellent. They are quick, fun and involve family.
Thirty perfect swings with the bat, nothing to hit or strike, is also excellent and unique to baseball. During any season players should enlist the 6 second swing on a regular basis. Adapted from Tai Chi, players take a deliberately slow and controlled perfect swings.
From the step and continuing with a complete follow through, encourage your player to close their eyes and visualize a perfect swing at a perfect pitch. Relaxed and in balance from a comfortable starting position, take an exhale breath and close your eyes. Visualize a pitch being released and going in slow motion, take the perfect stride in slow motion. Rotate the hips and load the core. Hands to the ball, roll trailing hand over leading hand, striking the ball, while close to the body and complete with the follow through.
This entire process should occur over a period of about 6 seconds, a true eternity when compared to live action. As a reader are probably wondering what Tai Chi has to do with batting.
A quick check on Chinese history will reveal centuries worth of expert swordsmen. The stroke of the sword is not so dissimilar to that of a bat swing. Each needs balance, power and targeting. As a comparative youngster to the human experience, baseball can learn a great deal from the activities of swordsmen that have been perfected and examined over hundreds of years and thousands instructors.
Simple drills not only provided muscle memory for doing them correctly, but when the parents are involved on such an individual and intimate setting, it makes up for time lost to the shows their Kids watch on Nick and other teen and pre teen targeting programming.
Parents compete with several media over the attention of their children. In 1974, competition was with the radio, shortly thereafter, MTV. Today, kids are bombarded from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep with sounds and noise from all sorts of things vying for their attention and spending dollars. relevision, radio, public places at large and the internet.
As a Parent, the most important thing you can give to your child is yourself.
What better opportunity than to separate your and your child from all the noise and participate together in a single activity. This is where baseball memories start. These memories are held closest to the heart.
So, once or twice a month, regardless of the season or the weather, take time with your child to practice a little baseball. Keep things simple, keep them brief and try a few yourself.
Much of baseball is situational. If this happens then I do that. Learning correct technique is best learned when you teach. Let your child teach you a little. Reinforcement of proper technique is quick and deep. Strengthening the connection between you and your child.
It is amazing what you each will learn together.
Mr. Dowdy is the father of 3 and after re-entering competitive baseball with his oldest that lead to frustration of finding suitable glove, he became an Official Distributor for Kelley Athletic available at http://NW.kelleyusa.com Also visit http://www.hirschgroupllc.com for more news/tips/articles
Origin and Early History of Baseball Explained
Henry Chadwick, called the father of baseball, its first writer and the inventor of the box score, claimed that American baseball was positively descended from the British game of rounders, which became “town ball” in this country, then baseball. He was an eyewitness to the evolution, having seen rounders played as a boy in England, and rounders, town ball and baseball in this country.
A. G. Spalding, founder of the famous sporting goods house, a fine pitcher himself, and publisher of the “Baseball Guide,” claimed that such a theory was nonsense and that baseball was purely an American invention. A committee was appointed to investigate the matter. The findings of the committee – that baseball had been invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday, a distinguished Civil War General, in Cooperstown, New York – were based wholly upon evidence submitted in a letter written by a man who stated that he had observed the actual invention when he was a schoolboy in Cooperstown.
Many accepted the findings of the committee even though there seemed to be much more evidence to support Chadwick’s claim than that of Spalding. To this day, even though numerous baseball authorities have repeatedly poked holes in the Doubleday theory, there are many who still believe this old story. It should be noted that Abner Doubleday himself never made any claims whatever to having had any influence on baseball. He had died years before the findings were published.
By the early 1840s, the baseball games played in this country had been pretty well standardized into “Town Ball,” played East of New York, and “the New York Game,” played, naturally, in New York. They were alike in many respects but Town Ball was patterned more after the ancient rounders, while the New York Game seems to have been largely taken from cricket. In 1842, the New Yorkers drew up the first diagram of a baseball field and grown men began to take this boys’ game seriously and to see in it possibilities for a great sport.
In 1845, the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York was formed, the first such organization in history. It was an amateur group with duly elected officers. No professional organization was to appear for twenty-five more years. The Club immediately began drawing up a set of standard rules and making plans for a more satisfactory playing field. Draftsman and surveyor Alexander Cart-wright was given the task of preparing a diagram for a new type of field.
By the following year, Cartwright had prepared the diamond diagram which, except for minor changes, is the baseball field used to this day wherever baseball is played. The Knickerbockers also established uniform rules which set the pattern for present-day ball.
The First Game. – The Knickerbockers then issued challenges to take on all comers and the first baseball game ever played under organized rules took place on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields (near Hoboken), New Jersey. “The New York Nine” was the opposing team and they beat the Knicks 23-1 in four innings.
So depressed were the Knickerbockers that they played no more inter-city games until 1851, but limited their play to practice games. After five years of practice, they evidently believed they were ready for another go at the game and took on the “Washington Baseball Club of New York” on June 3, 1851 on the same Elysian Fields.
Both teams were tied at the end of the ninth, but the Knicks got two runs in the tenth to win the game 22-20.
From this small beginning, the great game of baseball has developed into the huge game it is today.
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What I Know and Remember About Baseball – First Base Reach
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 his glove. Not a good bunt as the ball moves between third baseman and the mound. The batter is fast and is halfway to first when the third baseman finally gains control of the ball. As he grasps the ball the throw the runner is now one third of the way there. He launches a frozen rope to first.
The throw is off and low. Stretch into the splits the first baseman reaches and scoops the ball into his mit as the runners foot touches the bag. OUT, the umpire calls as the ball was in the mit before the runner reached the bag.
These are the exciting moments of baseball that get every ones heart racing. It happens in the brief moment between successfully hitting the ball and the seconds it takes to cover the distance from home to first.
Yet, how does the first baseman know when to stretch and how far? Most of all , how does he get there?
A newbie to the position will take a step towards the man with the ball before their release. True, making a step with the glove side foot is correct. However, the step is too soon as there is no information about the path of the ball to be caught.
Ideally a baseman will wait until the ball is released before take the step to the ball. From a comfortable position, feet should width apart, knees bent, heels off the ground, the baseman has plenty of time to make the appropriate stride to receive the ball. Being in a strong, athletic position gives the baseman the proper position to react as quickly as their body will allow.
To stretch before the ball is thrown puts the baseman in an non balanced position using weaker muscles. Think about it for a moment. Which is faster and under more control; standing and taking a step directly at the ball or being stretched out and lifting your forward foot off the ground to redirect your position.
Worse yet, if the ball is high, the baseman has almost no position or strength to make a jump to at least knock the ball down and keep it in the infield. It is a recipe for batter success to turn a tough single into a stand up double.
This method of tagging a bag can be applied to any base virtually 100 percent of the time where the baseman is to receive a throw for a force out. In all aspects of baseball, the greater the balance, the higher degree of success the player will have.
Remember, comfortable position, tag foot on the bag, step with the glove foot towards the throw after the ball is in the air, adjust as needed to receive the throw.
Mr. Dowdy is the father of 3 and after re-entering competitive baseball with his oldest that lead to frustration of finding suitable glove, he became an Official Distributor for Kelley Athletic available at http://NW.kelleyusa.com Also visit http://www.hirschgroupllc.com for more news/tips/articles
Testing An Athlete for Their Speed Potential is Essential for Success
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 ability to become faster? The only way to answer these questions is to perform some pre-season testing.
Many coaches perform some form of pre-season testing yet many do not know which tests to choose and which are specific to the fitness component that they are trying to test. Choose tests that are specific to the movements in your sport. This requires performing a needs analysis and understanding the exact requirements for your sport.
Benefits of Testing Include:
Identifying the current status of the athlete with regards to speed. It gives you an idea of where you stand in comparison to fellow athletes in your sport. When you conduct testing it will allow the athlete to see where they stand in relation to other athletes. They can also use these tests to motivate them in training to improve and strive to beat their test score the next time testing comes around.
Testing helps you to set goals for yourself. You may not be as fast as your opponent but you can certainly decrease the difference gap. Speed is recognised as one of the most important factors for success when training athletes. Once you know your current speed status then you can set goals for yourself on what times you will aim to get.
Testing also allows you to see if you are fast in certain areas but not in others. Eg. Do you have linear speed but are slow when it comes to speed with multi-directional changes?
Are you fast once you get going but lose time due to being slow off the mark? As already mentioned there are many often neglected factors that determine how fast an athlete is.
Testing gives you specific times and results for a test that are measurable and allows you to set goals for improving on theses times. When you beat a previous time for a certain test then you know that you have become a faster athlete.
Tests for Speed include the sprint test over 10 metres, sprint test over 20 metres, fan drill (used for the ITN Test), suicide sprints (speed – endurance, wave run speed and agility test and the 3 line speed and agility test.
Tests for Agility include the agility box run test, 5 ball pick-up, 4 cone sprint, “T” agility test and the bowtie drill.
Tests for Strength include 1 RM tests (bench press, 1 RM test (squat, handgrip strength test (hand grip dynamometer, abdominal strength test (sit-ups in 1 minute, isokinetic strength tests, total number of dips, pull-up test and total number of push-ups.
Tests for Power include medicine ball side-throw, medicine ball overhead throw, single-leg hopping test, squat, vertical jump test, standing broad jump test.
Tests for Flexibility include sit and reach, shoulder flexibility (use goniometer), hamstring flexibility.
Testing guidelines include testing prior to commencing your training program and conducting a thorough warm-up before you begin testing.
When testing you have to duplicate the exact testing procedures and variables in order to obtain valid and reliable results. You should also avoid excessive physical activity the day before testing. Perform the test at the same time of the day, perform the tests on the same surface and try to perform the test under similar weather conditions.
Other key points include performing the explosive tests first during a training or testing session. Be sure to clearly instruct the athletes on how to perform the test and allow for a trial run through of the test thus allowing for the “learning” factor associated with a new test.
Tests should be simple and easy to administer. Perform tests in the same order when re-testing. Have the athletes wear the same shoes and clothing. Test every 6 – 8 weeks. There is no need to test every month or few weeks and in fact this can be counter productive. You must allow enough time for the adaptational effects of your training to occur.
These tests should not be too time-consuming to set up and perform. There are many tests that you can perform that do not require special equipment. Most of these tests are not costly or difficult to set up.
Testing is a great way to monitor your training program and to see what changes need to occur in order to be more productive.
With any good speed testing program it is very important that you perform tests specific to your sport. In tennis speed occurs over very short distances. In other sports such as American Football you would test speed for wide receivers over 40 yards. This is where the needs analysis that you have conducted for your sport will identify these important variables.
David Horne is a former professional tennis player who has created several online sports web sites including http://www.sportsebooks.com which is the Ultimate Sports eBook Directory for all sports fans!