What is "Bat Control"?
Is it to hit the ball well or not to swing and miss the ball? Maybe so.
But isn't "Ultimate Bat Control" the technique to hit the ball to where you want the ball to be.
Co-development with Mr. Iizuka
Let us introduce some words from Tomohiro Iizuka who was a baseball player in Syndney Olympics in 2000, and also was a previous manager of Japanese Baseball team, NTT east Japan which is known as one of the top industrial baseball league teams.
The essence of bat contorl
I have seen the professional baseball players praciticing hitting in front of my eyes when I was chosen to be a player in Syndney Olympics 2000.
Among all the players, there was one player who was stunning in pracitce.
The name of the player was Nobuhiko Matsunaka who is the only triple crown in Heisei. His batting practice was terriic.
During the free batting time, he was hitting the balls to the same point the whole time as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
It surely made a great impact not only to me but to those players from other national teams who were watching his practice. It was like a show time!
It helped me considered what "bat control" exactly means.
It means to hit the ball as where you woud like the ball to be hit.
Mr. Yoshimura who is a CEO of Field Force and Mr. Iizuka are classmates in high school.
There aren't many training aids or equipment for bat control practice.
I remember the throwing practice against the wall. This was called "Kabeate" and I used to do it all the time.
It was a very simple practice.
You just throw the ball to where you would like the ball to be thrown.
I asuumed that this simple practice idea could also be used in batting.
You just hit the ball to where you would like the balll to be hit.
With the idea of "Kabeate", Mr. Iizuka and Mr. Yoshimura started the collaboration project to develop a training equipment for bat control.
They came up with target sheet with numbering from 1 to 9, which could be simply set to the back net.
They named it, "Bat Control improvement Sheet 9"
The importance of trying
Mr. Iizuka says that he spent so much time practicing hitting.
By using words like "angle of incidence" and "angle of reflection",
Angle of Incidence: Where you place the bat against the ball changes where the ball could be hit.
Various factors would change the direction of the ball, such as your body's standing position, rotation and use of the lower and the entire body.
Instead of teaching how to swing and bat, it is important for individual players to practice and try different ways to play such as;
Changing their standing positions
Changing the directions of the steps
Changing the bat paths
Changing the rotation of your body
Your experience of trying and failing leads you to the success. It is important to practice repeatedly until your body knows how to control.
What happens when you fly open?
Flying open is a very common problem when hitting.
You would swing and miss or hit a ground ball, when your front shoulder, chest and hip over rotate during a swing.
However, as I have said earlier, you should
purpusely fly open during a swing or change your position to see how your body movements impact your swings.
Let's hit the ball as always.
The ball went to center field.
Let's extend your arm.
The ball went to the opposite direction.
Let's swing on the instep.
It became a strong hit to the left side.
Let's step back a little.
The point moved to the front and the ball went to the right side.
If you improve your bat control skill,
you could be a great player for sure!
To any pitchers, you know how to hit.
During the batting practice, do you recklessly hit balls just to crunch the numbers? That may indeed be necessary, and I don't deny that.
But if you spend the same amount of time for your batting practice, try different ways of batting to improve your batting quality. It will definitely be a chance to stand out from your competitors!
Sequel of the Story
The manager of the Japan national baseball team known as Samurai Japan, Hirokazu Ibata and Mr. Iizuka were classmates in high school.
We've asked Mr.Ibatato try our Bat Control Improvement Sheet.
They were so into their conversation that they forgot about the time. With their experience and skills, they were able to hit the balls where the balls should be.
