The Official Forum - Tracking the Pitch

Warning long:
A conversation with a younger brought back some memories of my coaching days as it relates to batters. There were several vision drills that helped the batter to be a better hitter. Some of this carries over to calling balls and strikes.

Submitted for your consideration:
Once P has started the pitching motion, the ball is just a blur. However, there is a point that is unique to each individual's eyes, usually between 6-24 inches after the ball is released by P, where the blur suddenly becomes a clear round yellow object.

Whose eyes, yours versus mine, are "better" is not the issue. Rather, knowing where that spot is for you, is the critical factor in seeing the pitch come in for the longest possible distance, which puts you at the best possible advantage.

How many of you have heard coaches tell hitters, "Focus on the hip! That is the release point." Problem is, if the hitter goes into hard focus on the hip, the ball is still a blur at that point. This requires the hitter's eyes to have to "catch up" to the ball, which in most cases is too late to give the brain the .25 milliseconds it needs to tell the hands where to go to actually hit the ball.

The end result is that the batter (or umpire) is picking up the ball about 20 feet away from home plate. Disadvantage both.

A good drill to do for batters and umpires to do is to watch pitchers while they are throwing their warm-ups, and determine where their own eyes are able to first see the clear yellow round object, and use that as the focal point in the game which will give maximum distance of the flight of the pitch, ergo, better tracking of the pitch.

There was a coach from Canada that Mike (and possibly others here) would remember from FPF days who taught us a drill he did with his batters. There would be a live pitcher. Batter would be in the batter's box, but would not even had a bat. Some who might be nervous would actually be allowed to wear a glove for protection.

Coach would position himself behind the batter and hold a ball glove in front of the batter's face, such that the batter's vision was blocked for the last 20 feet of the pitch. The batter would have to then (without being able to see the last 20 feet of the pitch) call whether it was a ball or a strike, and if it was a ball, whether it was high, low, inside or outside.

These are the kinds of vision drills that I was sharing with this young umpire, in between games. But then it caused me to remember another thing. Perhaps he even asked me about it, but I don't really remember.

It was about teaching batters how to recognize the spin on the ball, to help give a cue as to what type of pitch is coming in.

For example, what is referred to as 12-6 spin (from the batter's perspective) would be a drop ball. 10-4 spin is a RHP curve ball, 2-8 spin is a RHP screw ball, and 9-3 is a rise ball. The numbers here refer to the positions on a clock.

In order to be able to detect this, it is very interesting (assuming you are still reading this).

The first thing to look for is the axis of the spin. Think of the softball as planet Earth with a North Pole and a South Pole which indicates the rotation. The seams on the softball will create an image that will definitely indicate the North Pole.

What you will see is a circle that is either very small (approx 1/2 inch), indicating what is called as "tight spin" or a much larger (as much as 2 inches) which would not be as effective. Pitchers are taught to throw spin, the tighter the better.

But as a hitter/umpire, if you are able to see the North Pole on the ball as it is coming in, you will notice a number of interesting variations of the location of the axis and the amount of wobble (small circle versus large circle).

Next game after talking about this, I became aware of it and was almost an epiphany.

Not only was I seeing tight and loose circles, but they appeared in multiple locations on the ball as the pitches were in flight. Ranging from 11 o'clock to 2 o'clock and everything in between.

STILL READING? THEN YOU NEED TO GET A LIFE!

But here is the bonus. As I was entertaining myself with this re-found skill, then I discovered something else that tickled my funny bone. I noticed that on foul balls, especially on the ones that went straight back, that I was able to see the original spin on the pitch, and at the moment the bat struck the ball, the spin would stop, and then change direction of spin as the ball was fouled back!!!!

Did you make it to the end?
Hope you got something out of this in terms of your strike zone.