Practicing Advise

quote:

Originally posted by LE1996:
Hello,
With the change in time, where I live it's already dark at 6 pm and my dad gets home at 7:30 pm and the place where we usually practice now always have their lights turned off so I wanted to know how I can practice my hitting on my own in my backyard. I have T but nothing to hit against so what can I buy? Price: less than $100. Any advice on drills on what i can do would be greatly appreciated.

Drills are good, but too many drills makes you good at drills (rather than hitting). Go buy one of those Thundersticks (I think that's what it's called). You can swing it in your house.

A pop up net is fine. Just google it you will find all kinds. They make them for golf and baseball. Check around on prices as you don't need a baseball specific one if they are more expensive. You can hit off a T and also take soft toss with them. They will fit the budget.

quote:

Originally posted by LE1996:
Hello,
With the change in time, where I live it's already dark at 6 pm and my dad gets home at 7:30 pm and the place where we usually practice now always have their lights turned off so I wanted to know how I can practice my hitting on my own in my backyard. I have T but nothing to hit against so what can I buy? Price: less than $100. Any advice on drills on what i can do would be greatly appreciated.

You can also hit wiffle balls off the tee, this is what Tony Gwynn does.

Like standballdad said above, whifle balls and a tee would be your best bet for low cost.

My question to you is though, do you understand your hitting mechanics well enough to detect any errors in your swing while doing those drills?

If not, the swings you take to "get better" may be actually harming you if you are repeating poor swings.

Just a thought.

Nate

If you have some place to put two poles up, then get some netting or heavy blankets, or both and tie them up to the poles. When you tie the netting or blankets to the two poles, leave them a little loose, so the balls will drop down and not bounce back. You'll have to experiment a little until you get the right tension. Also, leave the netting/blankets hanging loose on the floor to catch the balls when they drop, or build some kind of trough at the bottom to catch balls. If you can't use poles, then find a place to string a rope and put the netting/blankets over the rope.

Besides using a tee to hit off, you might want to try this hitting aid. www.shop.beebesports.com
You can get a lot of swing reps in by your self using this machine.

Hope this info helps

I had a college teammate that got a mattress and leaned it against a wall in his apartment and used to hit off the tee.