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Becoming a Ballplayer
- Joins a team
- Watches Games
- Pays Attention During Games
- Asks Questions
- Eats Right
- Knows When to Drink Water
- Goes to Bed Early Before Games
- Hits Off a Tee
- Values Teammates
- Has a Home Practice Regiment
- Communicates with Coaches
- Does Not Argue With Umpires
- Does Not Throw Equipment
- Runs Out Every Hit or Out Hard
- Hustles On and Off Field
- Is Ready On Every Pitch
- Expe
Building a Championship Team
- Everybody shows up
- Everybody shows up on time
- Everybody has fun
- You look like a baseball team
- Become willing to win
- Shows up and works harder than ever before
- Improves every practice
- Decides not to be scared
- Does better than ever before
- Listen to the coaches
- Ask questions
- Everyone works together
- Team has many leaders
- Reflects after games and practices
- Gets quality at bats
- Comes from behind
Slumps
Slumps. You hate them, but sooner or later everyone has one (or two). Before I get into them, I want to discuss different hitting philosophies out there in regards to pitch selection. The big league approach, “See as many pitches as you can, make the pitcher work,” is a great one. Then there’s the swing at the first pitch. Then there’s the take the first pitch every at-bat approach. There are several to choose from. When a slump occurs, pitch selection becomes very important.
Dealing with Coaches
You see it all throughout baseball, hitters get hot and hitters slump. Coaches invariably change their lineup according to who’s hot and who’s not. It sounds logical in the major leagues because they have 162 games to get out of their funk. To the majority of us, we have only several games to accomplish this.
Coaches play an important role in the development of their players, both physically and psychologically. The re-arrangement or re-assignment in the batting order is done to benefit the team, regardless of the psychological stress this may impose on the player.