Cobb is game’s greatest natural hitter—Is master of style—A few Cobb
yarns—Swing hitters and choke hitters—Importance and weakness of each
style—Gehrig’s hitting style—What makes him great—Willie Keeler’s
motto—The value of waiting—Correcting batting faults.
The greatest natural hitter I ever saw is Ty Cobb.
There may be fellows who can hit the ball further, and there are other
chaps perhaps who may excel him in some particular department of
hitting. But for all around class up there at the plate Cobb stands
alone.
I never saw Hans Wagner nor Napoleon Lajoie or the other old-timers who
loomed great as hitters. Perhaps they were as good as Ty. Some fellows
claim they were. But personally I don’t believe it. I don’t believe
there ever was another one like Cobb, or ever will be.
To young fellows, anxious to learn how to hit, the best advice I can
give is simply this: “Watch Cobb. Study his stance, his swing, his
timing and his follow-through. Imitate him. Copy his manner. He
comes as near being perfection as any batter in the world.”
Ty and I have had our little battles. There have been times when only
the interference of other players kept us from coming to blows. Once in
Detroit, a couple of years ago, we were prime movers in a playing-field
row that lead to a near-riot and resulted in a ball game being called
in the eighth inning because the police couldn’t clear the crowd from
the field.
We were rivals and playing-field enemies even in my pitching days. And
I pick Cobb as the greatest natural hitter I ever saw, despite the
fact that personally I found him easy to pitch to. A pitcher, over the
course of his career, runs across certain players who are easy victims,
and others who hit everything he offers regardless. Despite the fact
that Cobb was and is a great hitter, I always found him easy to pitch
to. I can name a dozen men in the league who gave me a lot more trouble
than Ty up there at the bat. Joe Jackson was one. Sam Rice was another.
Eddie Collins was still another. But despite that I still consider Cobb
the king of them all when it comes to hitters.
I’m paid to hit home runs. In a way that’s a handicap. To hit home
runs I’ve got to swing from my heels with all the power in my body.
Which isn’t good batting style. And the greatest tribute I can pay to
Ty Cobb is simply this. If I wasn’t expected to drive the ball out of
the lot every time I come up there to the plate I’d change my batting
form tomorrow. I’d copy Cobb’s style in every single thing he does. And
I’ll wager right now that if I could do that I’d increase my batting
average 100 points over the season.
Every man in the big leagues has his own individual batting style. But
in a general way you can classify batters into two divisions. One is
the “swing hitters.” Those are the fellows who grasp their bats at the
end, take a toe hold at the plate and take a full swing at the ball
with all the power they can muster. They’re the chaps who bust the
fences and send the outfielders back to the wall. They’re the fellows
who do most of the striking out too.
The other division is the “choke hitters.” These are the men we call
“smart hitters.” They choke their bats, stand flatfooted and take a
half swing. They poke the ball, rather than hit it—and while they don’t
get as much distance as the swing hitters, they are much harder
to fool. The choke hitter may not hit many home runs, but he doesn’t
strike out much either.
When I broke in to the league “choke hitters” were in the majority.
Cobb was in his prime then. So was Collins. New players copied their
batting styles as much as possible. Then, too, pitchers in those days
were permitted to doctor the ball and use all sorts of freak stuff. A
fellow had to choke his bat, take a short swing and be prepared for
anything, or else he “whiffed.” In these days “choke hitters” are
giving way to “swing hitters.” Change in pitching rules, coupled with
the fans’ demands for long and heavy hitting has brought about the
change.
Some folks say I was responsible for the development of “swing
hitting.” Maybe they’re right. The minute I started hitting home runs
with any frequency the newspapers took it up. The fans liked to see the
ball go sailing out of the park. After the old time pitching battle,
hitting of that sort was something of a novelty and a relief. Other
fellows, particularly the big, burly, powerful chaps, began taking
their bat at the end and “swinging from the heels” as the boys say. And
“swing hitting” came into prominence.
Understand I’m not saying ♦that “swing hitting” is a good thing.
I don’t think it is. The average kid or man, trying to improve his
hitting, will do well to forget home runs and adopt the “choke style.”
But just the same swing hitting is quite the rage in the major leagues
today.
♦ “hat” replaced with “that”
Among the fellows who are “swing hitters” will be found most of the
sluggers. I’m a swing hitter. So is Lou Gehrig. So are Harry Heilmann,
Goose Goslin, Pie Traynor, Bill Terry, Cy Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Bob
Fothergill, Bob Meusel, Rogers Hornsby, and a score of other long
distance sluggers whom I might mention.
Not all of us have the same style however.
When Lou Gehrig and I were in the midst of our race for home run honors
I had a lot of people ask me which of us hit the ball the harder. I
don’t imagine there’s a lot of difference in the force with which we
hit the ball. The point is that we hit differently.
We’re both “swing hitters” but there the resemblance ends. I use a
golfing swing—loose and easy with a slight upward motion. Lou hits
stiff-armed. Lou stands with his feet farther apart, and takes a
comparatively short stride with his swing. I stand with my
feet fairly close together, the right foot a little further in than
the left, and take a long stride with the swing. Lou hits with his
shoulders. I hit with my entire body coming around on the swing.
Naturally, with my whole body on a pivot I get a longer follow-through
than does Lou, whose follow-through is limited by the reach of his
rigid arms.
Swinging stiff-arm, too, Lou usually hits a ball on a line. The hardest
balls he hits are those which travel say twenty or twenty-five feet
above the ground and on a line to the outfield. Any time he lifts a
ball into the air (a fly ball) he loses some of the power. The balls I
hit most squarely and with most power are apt to go high into the air.
My home runs, for the most part, are usually high flies that simply
carry out of the park. That’s because I take a loose swing with a
slight upward angle.
Incidentally that ability to hit a high, hard fly has earned me a lot
of home runs in my career. Particularly in Washington and Cleveland
where the right field wall is fairly short but marked by a fence that’s
perhaps sixty feet high. When I hit a ball hard it clears the fence.
When Lou really smacks one, the ball takes such a low tangent that it
usually bounces back off the fence and is held to a single or a double.
Yet he may have hit the ball every bit as hard and as squarely as
I did.
You can prove that by the records. Look up Lou’s record and you’ll see
that he has had very few home runs in either Cleveland or Washington.
It isn’t that he doesn’t hit in those parks. Simply that he’s what we
call a “line hitter,” and a good high fence is tough for him.
Harry Heilmann has a stiff arm swing much like Gehrig’s, while Goose
Goslin takes a long free swing with plenty of follow-through like mine.
Harry, though a right hand hitter, hits to right field a lot. That’s
because he swings “late.” And by swinging late he overcomes, in a great
measure, the handicap of being a “swing hitter.” Harry is harder to
fool than the average “swing hitter.” Simply because he swings late,
he’s not so much a “goat” for change of pace stuff.
The “choke hitters” include such men as Cobb, Joe Sewell, Muddy Ruel,
Joe Dugan, Earl Combs, Mark Koenig, the Waner boys, Paul and Lloyd,
and Sam Rice of the Washington Senators. Mighty cagey boys they are
too—striking out seldom and usually rating right up to the top in the
matter of total base hits for the season.
Men like Joey Sewell and Earl Combs rate among the best stickmen
in the business. Combs doesn’t get a lot of credit for his
hitting—perhaps because he happened to be on the same club with Gehrig
and myself, who get drives so much longer. But he’s one of the best
hitters in the game just the same. And one of the most dangerous men in
a pinch, that a pitcher is ever called upon to face.
Like Heilmann, Combs is a “late” swinger—and being a left handed
hitter, he usually hits to left field or center. Combs is smart,
however, and can “cross up” a pitcher by some pretty nifty place
hitting. And the ability to place hits is the real mark of batting
prowess. Willie Keeler, one of the greatest and most scientific little
hitters who ever lived put his finger on the whole thing one day when
someone asked him the secret of hitting:
“Hit ’em where they ain’t,” Willie replied.
That sounds simple enough but it isn’t so easy. To understand what is
meant by place hitting you must understand first that pitchers are
always striving to make a man hit in a certain direction. The place
hitter is the chap who can take a ball which, ordinarily he would hit
to right, and hit it to left, or vice versa.
The greatest example of place hitting I ever saw was put on by
Ty Cobb one afternoon at the Yankee Stadium a couple of seasons ago.
Ty was taking batting practice and some of the boys on our bench were
kidding him.
Shocker, in particular, was “on” him.
“Hey, Ty” Shock yelled. “You’re supposed to be good. Let’s see you hit
one down the right field foul line.”
Ty took a half swing and planted the ball within three feet of the spot
Shocker called for.
“Now hit one to left,” Shocker commanded.
Ty socked one a mile a minute over third base.
“Center field, now,” Shocker ordered.
Ty dropped the ball over second base.
“Well, I’m a son-of-gun!” Shocker exploded. “Let’s see you foul one
back of the catcher.”
Ty did it, too.
“You win,” Shocker said, “I’m whipped.”
Ty grinned. “That’s nothing,” he shouted to the Yankee bench “you think
you’re quite a guy—suppose you catch this one.” And Ty drove a foul
right into our dugout, so close that Shocker could almost have reached
out and caught the ball.
That’s real place hitting. But it was no accident. A lot of times,
when the boys got on him a bit during batting practice, I’ve seen Ty
stand up there at the plate and drive a ball right into the dugout
sending all the fellows scurrying for cover.
Of course, hitting like that in batting practice, and doing it in a
game are two different things. Just the same Mr. Cobb comes about as
near being the perfect place hitter as anyone we have sticking around
the league today.
Eddie Collins is another chap who hits where he wants to hit, rather
than in the direction the pitcher wants him to. One of the pet hitting
stunts of these two is to fake a swing and find out whether the second
baseman or shortstop is going to cover. Then, when they’ve found out,
they lay one down right through the position that’s vacated as the man
goes over to cover second. That’s putting on the hit and run with a
vengeance.
Personally I’m not a place hitter. No “swing hitters” are. I’m big and
strong and get a lot of drive back of the ball. Everyone knows that
nine times out of ten I’ll hit to right field. But if I really get hold
of one it doesn’t make any difference whether the fielders know where
it’s coming or not. It just goes out of the park.
Just the same, I like to try a bit of place hitting once in a
while and in the past two or three seasons I’ve got so I can hit to
left pretty well by choking my bat and taking an extra step forward
with my swing. Naturally when I choke my bat the opposing fielders can
see what I’m going to do—but I get away from that by not choking until
the minute I start my swing. Then they don’t have time to come over for
me.
I don’t believe it’s possible to make a hitter.
A fellow either can hit the ball, or he can’t—and that’s that. But
it is possible for a natural hitter to improve, and it’s possible to
overcome a hitting weakness.
The batting eye, and the sense of timing are born in a man. If he
hasn’t got them, there’s no way of giving them to him. But mechanical
things can be overcome by practice. The swing, the stance, the
stride—these are things that can be changed and improved.
Every batter who comes into the big leagues has his “groove.” That’s
the place where he likes a ball best. With some fellows the “groove” is
a ball through the middle. With others it may be a high ball outside,
or a low ball inside, or vice versa. Given a pitch in that
particular spot he can whale the tar out of it.
By the same argument every player has a hitting weakness. Perhaps it’s
a curve ball. Perhaps it’s a change of pace. Perhaps it’s a low one
inside. The pitcher is trying constantly to pitch to that weakness and
keep away from the “groove.” The hitter, of course, is trying to hide
his weakness and get the pitcher to pitch to his strength.
A hitting weakness is one thing that can be overcome by constant
practice and hard work. When I first broke into the game I had a tough
time hitting change of pace pitching—particularly the real slow stuff.
I swung too fast, and either fouled the ball off into the stands or
missed it entirely. Today I believe I can hit the slow stuff about as
well as any “swing hitter” in the business. And all because I worked
hard at it. I used to go up to the batting cage during spring practice
and have the pitchers give me slow ball after slow ball. I’d swing and
swing until I was arm-sore. But I got my timing down so I could hit the
slow ones—and that was the thing I was after.
Another thing that used to bother me was over-anxiety to hit. Most
fellows suffer from that at one time or another. You’re so anxious
to hit that you swing at bad balls. The toughest thing anybody has to
learn is to keep that old bat on the shoulder on the “close ones.” The
smart pitcher is always working the comers, keeping the ball just an
inch or two outside or inside, a mite too high or a bit too low. The
over-anxious hitter is duck-soup for that sort of pitching.
Most fellows go up there to the plate with the wrong idea. They see a
ball coming up on the corner and they think to themselves: “This one
looks pretty good. I’d better swing at it or maybe the umpire will call
it a strike, anyhow.”
What they ought to think is:
“That one’s not good enough. If I let it go chances are it will be
called a ball.”
You may get crossed up and have a strike called now and then, but you’d
be surprised how often it really is a ball. And once a pitcher sees
that you’re not to be fooled on those “almost strikes” he’ll come in
there with it and give you something a little ♦better to hit at.
♦ “beter” replaced with “better”
I learned my lesson in that 1923 world series. I’ve already told you
about it. It was plain over-anxiety to hit that made me swing at a ball
in the ground for that third strike that Ryan threw. Since then
I’ve been a little more careful.
Of course there’s danger the other way too. As Umpire Bill Byron used
to say, “You can’t get a hit with the bat on your shoulder.” That’s
true enough. But neither can you get a hit if you keep swinging at bad
balls all the time.
As I started out to say, it’s possible for a fellow to improve his
hitting, and correct his hitting weaknesses. The answer is practice,
hard work, and confidence. When Lou Gehrig first came into the league
he couldn’t hit a low ball inside. Lou did two things. First he changed
his stride. He had been stepping well into the ball. Now he stepped
just a little straighter. Then he practiced, and practiced. Today
not many pitchers have the nerve to pitch ’em low and inside to Lou
anymore. He has overcome his weakness.
Rogers Hornsby, one of the greatest right hand hitters the game has
ever known, is another chap who had to work hard when he came into the
league. Strange as it may seem Rog was no bargain with the stick when
he first came into the league. But he had the natural hitting eye,
and Miller Huggins, who was then manager of the Cardinals, set him
to work. First off he changed his stance, took a little of the
stiffness out of his legs and taught him to stride with the swing. Then
he got him to loosen his shoulders a bit—and the first thing anyone
knew Roger was tearing the hands off infielders who got in front of his
drives.
I guess there’s no better curve ball hitter in the big leagues today
than Joe Harris, who starred with Washington and later with Pirates.
Joe socks that old curve ball for sleeper jumps right regularly. Yet
when he came into the league Joe couldn’t hit a curve ball. He simply
studied the thing out, discovered what was wrong and corrected it. It
takes a long time, sometimes, but it can be done.
Nobody can put down a set of rules for correcting batting.
In the first place no two men hit alike. When I was a kid in Baltimore,
playing on a kid team, we had a young fellow on our club who thought he
knew a lot about baseball. He started out to make us all into hitters,
and his theory was that the most important thing was swinging on a
straight line. So he took two boards and nailed them on a post, leaving
just space enough between them for a bat to pass easily. Then for
fifteen or twenty minutes at a time we’d stand up there and swing
at that opening, the idea being to develop a swing that would keep the
bat moving in a straight line. It sounded fine but it didn’t work out.
The first thing we knew we were all swinging perfectly stiff. If a ball
happened to come through the middle of the plate, waist high, we would
murder it. But if it was high or low we were sunk.
Here are some general rules that might be worth following:
If your weakness is a fast ball, don’t hold your bat quite so far back
on your shoulder. Shorten your back swing and shorten your stride. In
other words speed up a little.
If your weakness is a curve ball, change your stride to step into the
ball a little more. Most fellows who can’t hit curve balls are chaps
who stride out of line or “pull away” from the ball.
If you have trouble with the slow stuff choke up your bat and start
your swing a bit later. Most batters who have trouble with slow ball
pitching are “pull” hitters. That is, they are meeting the ball “out
front.”
And whether your difficulty is a slow one or a fast one a curve or a
change of pace; whether you’re trouble is a high one or a low
one, inside or outside, the most important thing of all to remember is
simply this.
“Don’t hit at the bad ones. Make ’em be in there.” In a poker game the
wise guy always remembers the old saying: “You don’t have to look.” In
baseball, up there at the plate, it’s well to remember always:
“You don’t have to swing!”