Hitting style—Naturalness at the plate—Simmons’ freak batting
stance—Joey Sewell has ideal stance—The Ruthian swing—How it develops
power—Selecting the proper bat—Timing an important factor in
hitting—How to improve timing and swing.
When Al Simmons first broke into the American League a lot of the wise
boys predicted that he wouldn’t last out his first season.
“He steps in the bucket” they said—meaning that when he takes his
stride his left foot (Al is a right hand hitter) pulls away from the
plate.
“A sucker for a curve ball” the pitchers told each other. And then
tried him out. Al promptly knocked their curves to all corners of the
lot—and he’s still doing it. And stepping in the bucket, just the same.
Which just goes to show that there’s no rule governing the good hitter.
I don’t think there’s another man in either league who could stand at
the plate the way Al does, and still hit the size of his hat. But
stepping in the bucket is Al’s natural hitting form—and what is natural
is generally best in baseball.
Al overcomes that back step by using an exceptionally long bat—the
longest in the league I think, and just as long as the baseball law
will allow. The result is that he can reach the outside corner for a
curve if he has to, and at the same time he’s far enough away that the
inside stuff doesn’t bother him.
Understand I’m not recommending that all hitters “step in the bucket.”
And I’m not holding Al’s hitting form up as an example. I’m just
illustrating the point that there’s no rule governing the good hitters.
There’s no one more off form, than Al, and mighty few better hitters.
It all goes back to the same thing.
The most important thing about hitting is to be natural, and be easy.
George Burns, the Cleveland first baseman, is another hitter whose
stance at the plate is entirely off form. George stands perfectly
straight, with his feet right together. There’s no other man in
either league who stands that way. Even if they tried it the
chances are they would be a complete bust. Yet George hits—and hits
well. And what is more he hits most any sort of pitching.
Joey Sewell has always appealed to me as about the ideal type of left
handed hitter. Sewell stands up there flat footed, feet fairly far
apart and firm set in the box. He takes his swing from the shoulder,
putting his body into the pivot only at the last minute. The result is
that he’s a hard man to fool. The strikeout records prove that. For the
past three or four seasons Joey has struck out less than any man in the
league. One season he went through 154 ball games and struck out only
three times. A fellow like that is a real hitter.
Sewell hits a ball hard and far too. He doesn’t get his body into the
swing like the “swing hitters” do, but he does get a lot of wrist snap.
If you’ve ever taken any golf lessons you know how the golf pro coaches
you to use your wrists. Hitters of the Sewell type use the same sort of
wrist snap when they hit a baseball. Tony Lazzeri is another chap who
gets most of his drive from his wrist. Tony used to be a boiler maker,
and constant use of the heavy boiler-maker tools plus the arm exercise
has developed his forearm and wrist muscles to the limit. Tony
really is built slight and to look at his hands you’d never dream of
their power. His fingers are long and tapering, his palms are narrow
and almost girl-like. But he has a wrist and forearm like steel. That’s
what gives him his driving power at the bat and his snap throw from
second.
No ball player ever made good either as a hitter or a fielder unless
he had well developed wrist and forearm muscles. There are a lot of
exercises that can be used to get that development.
One of the common methods used by ball players to strengthen the
wrist and forearm is to buy a five or ten cent rubber ball, and carry
it around, gripping and relaxing it all the time. If you do that
for fifteen or twenty minutes a day you can strengthen the forearm
a lot—and if you don’t think those muscles get a real workout by
gripping, just try it. The first fifteen minutes of that exercise will
make your arm ache clear to the elbow.
Earl Combs uses this method. Earl had a bad throwing arm when he came
into the league, but gripping exercises have strengthened his wrists
and his throwing has improved a lot.
I never had any trouble that way myself. My arms and wrists and
shoulders have always been well developed. If anything I’m a little
“top heavy,” and the thing I have to watch most is my legs. I’ve
learned a lot of things in the past two or three years, among others
the value of proper exercise. For the last three winters I’ve worked
out regularly in a gymnasium, and there I’ve spent most of the time on
exercises that would develop my legs and keep my waist line down at the
same time.
One of the common faults of kid hitters particularly, is that they
don’t use the proper bat. Most of them try to swing bats that are too
heavy, figuring of course that the heavier the bat, the more distance
they can get. That’s wrong. Any time a player uses a bat that feels
heavy in his hands, he’s making a mistake. The ideal bat is one that
balances perfectly, one that can be swung with the same easy, smooth
motion with which you swing your arms. A too heavy bat requires a jerk
to start on it’s way, and once underway it requires additional effort
to direct it’s course. Naturally that makes a jerky, choppy swing. Not
so good.
The average weight of bats used by big leaguers is 36 ounces. The bat
I use is much heavier, but you must remember that I’m a pretty
big boy. And I’m cutting down on bat weight as the years go by. A few
seasons ago I used a 54 ounce bat, long and with the weight well at the
end. Now I’m using a 46 ounce club—and each season when I have a new
set of bats made, I have an additional ounce taken off.
The longest bat in the big leagues is swung by Al Simmons. I’ve already
told about that. The shortest bat I ever saw in my day was used by
Whitey Witt—a stubby club with a thick handle. The reason for that was,
that as a lead off man Whitey’s business was to get on base. He bunted
a lot, and a thick handled bat gave him a chance to get hold of balls
thrown inside.
I don’t know who uses the lightest bat today, but Wally Schang, the old
Yankee catcher, uses one of the lightest. Alongside my bat, Schang’s
looks like a toothpick. Earl Combs uses a light bat, too. Rogers
Hornsby is another chap who uses a fairly light model. So does Sam Rice
of the Senators.
Now and then some player will come along with a freak bat of some
sort. Like the old bottle bat that Heine Groh used to use. So far as I
can see there’s nothing to that sort of thing—except perhaps in
the mind of the man using the bat. If some freak stick will give him
confidence, why it’s a good thing. After all confidence is one of the
biggest things in hitting.
All big leaguers have their favorite bats. For years I used a big black
model that the boys called “Black Betsy.” I had the same identical
thing in several other “sticks” but somehow that black one had a little
more appeal. And I used it for the better part of three seasons before
it finally broke on me.
Players often trade bat models, but they guard their pet bats as if
they were solid gold. Earl Combs is one of the easiest going, most
pleasant even-tempered chaps I ever saw. But once last summer I saw him
when I think he would gladly have committed murder—all over a bat.
Earl had a pet stick that he had been using all season long. He
protected it like a child, and he wouldn’t even use it in hitting
practice. “That bat is full of basehits,” he would say, “and there’s no
need wasting them on hitting practice.”
One afternoon Hug sent Mike Gazella up to hit just as batting practice
ended. Mike didn’t look around to select a bat, just took the first one
that came handy. It happened to be Combs’ pet club. On the second
pitch Mike swung with everything he had and broke the bat square in
two. I thought Earl would crown him. I never saw a man get any more
angry for a few minutes than Combs was—and for two weeks after that he
couldn’t speak to Mike without making some crack about that bat.
A few years ago Sam Crawford, the old Detroit outfielder and slugger,
sent me a sample bat from the coast. It was one of those trick things
made out of four separate sections, pasted and fitted together. Sam
wanted me to try it out and see how it worked.
The first time up I hit the ball over the fence for a home run
and during the entire game I got myself two doubles and a single
in addition to the home run. Naturally I was tickled pink. In the
clubhouse that night I had Woodie send Sam an order for six of the bats.
They came along a few days later, and Colonel Ruppert happened to be in
the clubhouse when they arrived. He took a peek at the bill and threw
his hands in the air. Those bats were listed at six dollars each.
“Well, Ruth,” the Colonel commented, “I guess we keep these bats
in the safe, eh, with the mortgages and family jewels.”
The funny part of it all is, that a few days later some manager
protested that the bats were illegal—since they were made of four
separate pieces of wood. As a result the umpires ruled them out, and so
far as I know the good Colonel still has those six bats stored away “in
the safe with the mortgages and the family jewels.”
Harry Heilmann gave me a bat a week or so before the season ended last
year. It was one that he had been hitting with, and he liked it. “Try
this out in the world series,” he told me, “it’s full of base hits.
There’s only one provision though,” he added. “You’re not to use it
against the Detroit club.”
Ball players are always trading bats. Goose Goslin never comes to New
York that he doesn’t come over to our dugout and look over all the
bats. Wallie Schang is another one who is always looking for “good
wood.” And very frequently a couple of players will get together and
trade bats like little kids swap stamps for the collection albums.
The best woods for bats is either ash or hickory. Both are tough
hard woods with plenty of “spring” (elasticity). The hickory is a
little heavier than the ash. For myself I usually use hickory, but most
of the boys prefer ash. In buying a bat, the chief thing to look for is
a smooth even grain.
Joe Dugan for years has used a black bat of Cuban wood—a soft light
weight wood. Joe likes a light bat and he figures that the Cuban makes
up in “spring” what it may lack in weight. And he certainly can drive a
ball with it, you have to hand him that.
But when all is said and done, confidence is the biggest thing in
hitting. Fellows who go up there to the plate with a lot of confidence
are pretty apt to hit.
Fellows get queer notions in hitting. They have superstitions about
their bats: they have superstitions about certain pitchers. Hitters
will tell you in all seriousness that certain pitchers have their
number, or that certain other pitchers are always easy.
Late last season I started a stunt which gave the boys quite a laugh
for a time. I started “notching” my bat for home runs, like the old
gun-men used to notch their guns when they killed a man. Every time
I would hit a home run I would cut a notch in the bat handle of
the club I had used. At first the boys began laughing, but as September
came around and I started hitting all sorts of pitching for home runs
they changed their tune.
I have one bat in the club house that has seven notches in the handle,
and another one that has eleven. Eleven is about as many as a bat will
hold for the minute you start notching the hitting surface the umpires
will throw the bat out. The whole thing started as a sort of “kid,” and
as a matter of fact I wasn’t superstitious about those notches at all.
But most of the gang thought I was. And I did accomplish one thing.
By putting those notches in the bat I identified my own clubs and the
other fellows would leave my bats strictly alone.
Speaking of funny customs there’s the old, old habit of “boning” bats.
Fellows were doing it when I came into the league, and I suppose
they’ll still be doing it fifty years from now. “Boning” a bat consists
in rubbing it with a bottle or a bone or some hard smooth substance
of that nature. The idea is that such constant rubbing smooths the
surface, fills in and contracts the wood pores on the surface and
prevents breaking. I’ve seen fellows sit for hours at a time
boning away at their favorite bats. Some of them stain the wood as
well. Frankie Frisch never chews tobacco, but he used to use tobacco
to rub his bat with—working it into the grain until the bat looked as
though it had been stuck in some tobacco vat. The umpires don’t permit
that any more—but “boning” comes within the law, and everyone does it.
One other thing while we’re on the subject of hitting. All hitters have
different styles. Some swing flat footed, others take a long stride.
Some choke and some swing. But there are certain features in which all
hitters—if they’re good ones—act alike.
They have to have perfect balance, perfect timing and a good eye.
Balance and timing are much the same. It is timing which enables a man
to meet the ball at the exact instant when all his body is thrown into
the swing. It’s timing which enables a man to hit fast and slow balls
with equal ease. It is timing which, more than any one thing, is the
secret of real hitting.
And the unfortunate thing about it is that timing is one thing which
you can’t teach. It’s born into a man. You either have it or you
haven’t. Little kids, starting to go to singing school, are the
same way. Either they have a musical sense or they haven’t—and if they
haven’t they never acquire it.
All forms of athletics depend on timing. It’s the secret of golf and
handball and tennis. It’s the secret of boxing, and it’s the secret
of football offense. A few years ago I saw Red Grange run for three
touchdowns against the University of Pennsylvania eleven. And the thing
that impressed me most was not his speed, or his power. It was his
timing. It was so perfect that he could avoid tackles by the split part
of an inch. His timing was so perfect that in going through the line he
always managed to reach his hole at the very instant when it was open
widest. And that is timing developed to the last degree.
Go out to the ball game some day and watch the really great hitters.
You’ll notice that they don’t seem to swing any harder, or with any
longer arc than the poorer hitters. But they have perfect timing sense.
That’s the most important thing in batting.
As I said before, a man either has a sense of timing or he hasn’t.
But you can improve you’re timing. Lots of times I go into slumps,
as do all other hitters. The first thing I look to is my timing. I
try swinging a bit later, or a bit earlier. I shorten or lengthen
my stride. I experiment with every angle of timing. And usually I can
correct my fault, even though I may not know exactly what it is.