Though I knew that hitting a softball with a bat wasn’t an easy skill, especially at high-speeds, I was shocked to see that what hand-eye coordination I had from other sports did not transfer to softball. At all.
As a multi-sport athlete, I have tried my hand at a variety of sports ranging from lacrosse to flag-football. Inside and outside of school I have participated in lacrosse, flag-football, soccer, basketball, cross country and swimming. All of the sports I have played are considered either a “team sport” or a “team racing sport.” The competition revolves around either working with a team to score in the opponent’s goal or simply racing next to the opponent. Through playing these different sports I have learned footwork, endurance and one of the most important skills, hand-eye coordination. Essential in lacrosse, basketball and flag-football, I have developed this skill overtime to a high-degree. However, recently I attended a girls’ softball practice and entered into a whole new world of athletics with a “bat-and-ball sport” and was humbled by the lack of skill I possessed.
When attending the practice, the team broke out into different drills: form hitting, batting cage hitting and weighted ball hitting. Starting at the form hitting drill, batting tees and hitting nets were set up with groups of two to three players at each station. The form hitting was a progression drill that involved players hitting at different angles to the tee in order to emphasize and train proper technique.
When I first attempted the hitting drill I set up my stance similarly to a golf stance. Though I don’t play golf, I’ve had more experience with golf than with softball so my initial form resembled more closely that of a golf swing. Despite the obvious inexperience the players did their best to help fix my form. First, they corrected the way I held the bat, something I didn’t even know could be wrong, then they coached me to use my hips rather than my torso when swinging.
As they helped to correct my technique I was intrigued by all the different components that make up a swing. Since I’ve always been in the stands and have never tried softball, the form hitting drill opened my eyes to a whole new aspect of the sport because of the emphasis they place on the basic mechanics of the hitting motion.
Up next was the weighted ball drill. The drill, run by Coach Alton Lightsey, required players to hit weighted softballs in order to train power. Players demonstrated they were able to receive the toss from Lightsey and hit the ball about 10 feet with ease. While I thought with skills from other sports that my hand-eye coordination would allow me to at least hit the ball, I was wrong.
Lightsey pitched the ball lightly at me and I swung and missed completely. He pitched again and though this time I made contact, the ball hit the bottom of the bat and was moved less than a foot. As I continued swinging, I made sure to focus on contact with the ball rather than the form of my swing. Finally, after multiple attempts, I made contact with the ball but still only managed to hit it halfway.
The experience of practicing with the softball team was an enlightening experience that not only taught me the value of precision to detail, but also let me preview the world of a “ball-and-bat” sport and how that differs from sports I’ve played. While being a softball player for the day was a learning experience, I plan on sticking to my other sports where I can manage to hit the ball.
