Baseball Hitting Tips from Musial, Yaz, Oliva
How did Stan Musial hit .331 over his 24-year career?
How did Carl Yastrzemski win 3 batting titles?
How did Tony Oliva win AL batting titles his first two seasons?
I asked them back in 1990.
A central focus to what I teach baseball players is the importance of their approach. What are you committed to doing out there on this pitch?
In my interviews Musial, Yastrzemski, and Oliva discussed their approach at the plate and all three had an interesting theme: They grew up hitting the ball primarily to the opposite field.
Not until they were 3-5 years in the Big Leagues did they start to pull the ball more often.
Why? Let’s let them tell you…
Musial’s philosophy of hitting was “get the fat part of the bat on the ball, hitting the ball where it was pitched.” This is not as easy as it sounds:
Musial: Of course, you know it takes a few years to be able to do that. I’m talking about once you get to the big leagues. I wasn’t a pull hitter at the beginning, I was a spray hitter. Basically I hit the ball to left field, to left center. I used to hit a lot of doubles and triples in that direction because I could wait a little longer on the pitch and go with the pitch, and I was just meeting the ball. Then after 4, 5 years in the majors why, after you get your confidence and you felt like you could, then I started pulling the ball, and doing the things at the plate that I wanted to do, not hitting the pitcher’s pitch. I was getting to a point where after 4 or 5 years I was able to pull the ball, go to left field, go for distance, all that. Of course these things take 4, 5 years and I guess when I was 27, 28 I got in my prime, you know, I think an athlete’s best time is between 28, 30, and 32, in a career, so I was able to do that. Just meet the ball, hit it hard, go with the pitch.
Most importantly, once in a while you’ve got to give in to the pitcher. You just can’t, you know he’s out there thinking just like you are, and he has some idea about what he might want to do of course, and so a lot of times you’ve got to go with the pitch [hit it to the opposite field]. Which most hitters can’t do.
I was very fortunate when I was young, before I played high school ball, and all of this happened sort of accidently, was we had a ball field that had a short right field, and we had one ball. And if you hit the ball over the short right field you had to wait for the outfielder to chase it down, it took time. Whereas in left field we had a hillside in left field and if you hit the ball against the hillside the ball was in play. So being a left-handed hitter and the hill in left field I learned how to go the opposite way.
That’s a very important factor in hitting, being able to go to the opposite way. So I learned that when I was young.
And I could always hit to the opposite field. Any time I wanted to I could hit to the opposite field. As I came along professionally, I was still hitting the ball to left field, but then I got more confidence, and stronger, and playing more, getting experience that was able to pull the ball whenever I wanted to, the pitch inside. So it’s very important to be able to hit to the opposite field.
Hanson: That’s interesting because that’s a similar story to what Oliva said. He said his orientation was to hit it to the opposite field almost all the time, but once he became a professional, he got stronger and he worked at it more until he learned to pull the ball.
Musial: Well, pulling is the hardest thing to do. Pulling the ball in baseball is the hardest thing to do, because the bat has got to get out further to the ball [demonstrates arm position] you’ve got to be out in front of it. Whereas hitting the ball to the opposite field you’re waiting a little longer, your eyes and head are closer to the ball.
Whereas when you are [pulling the ball] your hands and bat and head and eyes are further from the ball then they are when you are hitting the opposite way.
Hanson: What would you say was your orientation at the plate, or is that what you were saying that it would vary a great deal? Oliva talked a lot about his base orientation was going to the opposite field and Musial talked about hitting the ball where it is pitched.
Yaz: Well, I had two different things, careers if you want to call it. My first six years I was more of a straight-away hitter. I really didn’t look to zones and spots I just waited on the ball and hit the ball wherever it was pitched. That’s a much easier way to hit. From ‘67 on I became a dead pull hitter and with my size it was more difficult to hit because I couldn’t take an outside pitch and pull it. I’d have to give up the outside part of the plate when I was a pull hitter, whereas when I was a straight-away hitter I didn’t have to give up the outside part of the plate. If I would have hit for average, I could have hit .300 average easy if I had stayed a straight-away hitter. It’s much easier to hit the ball that way. You wait on the ball longer and use the opposite field. But I decided that in ‘67 I was going to become a pull hitter and with my size it became more difficult to pull the ball and hit for high average also.
Hanson: Looking back does that seem like it was a good decision?
Yaz: Well I made the decision according to the ballclub. I just thought that we needed someone to hit for power and drive in runs.
Hanson: That’s a similar situation that both Oliva and Musial talked about, they both talked about being go-the¬other-way-type of guys early on and then learned to pull and that was in large part what made them become a more complete hitter.
Yaz: Ya, right. Same as I. The same thing I did. At the end of my career I tried to go back as a straight¬away hitter, figuring that with a little bit of age it would help me to wait a little bit longer and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was just so accustomed, so many years of looking for zones and a pitch on the inside part of the plate at a certain height, giving up the outside part of the plate, I couldn’t adjust to a change in my thinking.
— Yastrzemski noted in his book that in his early years, “I was not a dead-pull hitter… Even though I hit .650 one season in high school, I was more like a Wade Boggs- type than a power hitter. I could spray the ball to all fields” (Yastrzemski & Eskanzi, 1990: p. 2). Also, speaking of his ideas on hitting as a rookie, Yastrzemski said “My theory of hitting was simple. Look for the ball, get a pitch in the strike zone, and hit it” (Yastrzemski & Eskanzi, 1990: p. 57). —
Hanson: So from ‘67 on your orientation was to look for something from the middle of the plate on in and try to pull it out of the park?
Yaz: Hit it hard, pulled. You’d never think of hitting a home run. Very few times did I ever think of hitting a home run and actually do it. Usually it would come on an accident. My whole theory was try to knock an infielder down with a line drive (Y, 246-257).
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from their words.
I will say another major theme from my interviews with great hitters is that they kept it simple. You need to find what’s best for you, but I can tell you that hitting to the opposite field is an easier task than pulling. Think about it.
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Get more power-packed mental game training here: www.BaseballConfidence.com
Baseball Coaching: The Power of Coaching
You may have seen this video before, but even so you likely forgot about it.
It isn’t baseball coaching, but it could be. Not that I think a great baseball coach yells like this very often, but there is a time and place for it.
More to the point is the coach is cleverly is helping the player expand his self-image. Self-image is the greatest limiter of us all.
As you can see, it’s one thing to tell someone “you can do so much more than you think you can,” and quite another for the player to EXPERIENCE it.
For a very short time you can experience really great coaching like this at http://www.loadtoexplode.com/hanson.htm. Sorry, others, this link is only for my subscribers and only for today (maybe tomorrow, try it to see).
Baseball Coaching: How to Motivate Today’s Player
Straight from the mail bag today:
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Coach Jason writes:
IN THESE DAYS OF ‘EVERYONE GETS A TROPHY’ AND IF YOU DIE IN THE VIDEO GAME YOU GET UNLIMITED LIVES … HOW DO YOU MOTIVATE A KID THAT HAS ABOVE AVERAGE TALENT TO EXCEL AND NOT JUST PLAY AT THE LEVEL THAT IS HIS COMFORT ZONE?
YOU KNOW, HOW DO YOU GET
100%-ALL-OUT-WIN-OR-GO-HOME-WITH-MY-BALL EFFORT?
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TH: First of all, you might not be able to. For a coach or parent, a player’s motivation lies in the land of “I care about it but I can’t control it.”
Understanding what you can and can’t control is a foundational element of the mental game.
Hitters need to realize (“realize” is a whole different ball game from “knowing”) they can’t control getting a hit; pitchers need to realize they can’t control getting a batter out.
Likewise for the coach and parent re: player motivation
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But of course that doesn’t mean you don’t do anything about it. I could go on for book length about this question.
But today I’ll touch on one often overlooked piece: context.
By context I mean the surrounding elements in a player’s physical world which give rise to his all-importnat inner context (beliefs).
Let’s just say by context I mean his environment.
So my answer to Coach Jason’s question is to improve the player’s context.
(The normal approach is to focus on HIM. I’m saying focus on his environment.)
Put him in an environment that inspires him; gives him a taste of a good life that could come from playing good baseball.
For example…
Why is Tampa a baseball hot-bed producing more players than many other similar sized metro areas? There are “cues” in the Tampa environment that suggest a good life if you play good baseball.
And since this Tampa player and that Tampa player and that other Tampa player made it big and you are from Tampa YOU can make it big too, if you work.
A young Tampa player at my son’s Citrus Park field, for example, sees trophies of State Champions that have come before, including last summer’s Little League WS team.
The success is palpable in the environment.
I also felt it the first time I walked onto the Yankee’s minor league complex. The environment elevated performance.
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So my answer is to put this player in situations where success is expected. Hard work is the norm.
And where he can taste success. Taste passion. Taste the fun that comes from really committing and playing full out.
And the “taste” is hugely important.
A great talent can’t just be told about the great fun possible if he works hard, he needs to experience it.
So look for ways to get him that taste. One example is a personal brush with a role model. Another is my Baseball Success Secrets Coaching Program.
www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com
Each week he’ll get an exercise to do that will give him the FEELING of great success. Feel success enough and you start to want more.
It’s like a drug. So maybe think of yourself as a “success pusher” — giving a player samples of the success feeling until he gets hooked.
Of course, just like a hitter, you can do everything right and still strike out. (but it’s not very smart to focus much on that…)
Dr. Tom
Tom Hanson, Ph.D.
p.s. Re-formatting my dissertation has taken a lot longer than I anticipated and I apologize to BSSCP members, but I’ll be done in the next few days.
Part of the delay is I’m re-experiencing it for really the first time since I set it aside in 1992.
Reading the words of Oliva, Musial, Aaron, Carew and Yaz has really been inspiring to me. The info in these 335 pages is staggering.
And my colleagues are wondering what I’m thinking giving it as a bonus for a $4.95 investment.
So once I get it done and do the “FAST START” bonus teleseminar Thursday night I will re-evaluate whether I will let it out for gratis.
So if you haven’t yet got the CD “The 7 Success Secrets of Baseball’s All-time Best” and the 2 weeks in my coaching program (with exercises that let you taste success) and my “Confidence Conditioning for Baseball” program and my doctoral dissertation (“The Mental Aspects of Hitting) for just the shipping cost, please do so now before I re-evaluate my bonus offer and start selling my
dissertation:
www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com
p.p.s And please tweet this.
p.p.s. Last second thought: Coach or parent, YOU are a major part of his context. So you can upgrade his context by upgrading yourself. THAT is what my program does for you.