Hands on hips drill
Put both hands on each side of your hips and turn your back foot, also work on stepping as lightly as you can on your front foot. Keeping the head and lead shoulder quiet.

Nose drill
This is a good drill for keeping your head quiet the whole way through the swing. Put a ball down on top of the plate so that it splits your hitting stance (between your feet). Take your swing - your head should be on the ball at the end of your swing. Keep in mind that keeping your lead shoulder quiet helps keep your head on the ball.

Fence drill
Put the knob of the bat in your belly button and stand away from the fence until the end of the bat is barely touching the fence. Take your practice swings without hitting the fence and concentrate on taking the hands to the ball.

Balance drill
Swing the bat at regular speed off the tee and hold your swing for 3 seconds. If you begin to sway during those 3 seconds - you are not keeping your balance.

One knee drill
Get on one knee (right knee for righties and left knee for the lefties) choke up about 2-3 inches and swing the bat with just the arms and keep the hands inside the ball at all times, try to hit the ball to right center.

Hitting off the tee
Try to concentrate on hitting the ball to right center or right field at all times, this will help keep your hands going towards the baseball. Try to work on short to long swings. Adjust the height of the tee for low pitches, high pitches, inside, middle, and outside pitches. Inside pitches should be pulled with tee out in front of you about 1½ feet and set inside. Pitches down the middle should be set with the tee just inside your front knee and hit back up the middle. Outside pitches should be set three inches deeper and three to six inches farther outside than a pitch down the middle and hit to right center and right field. Remember - the majority of pitches thrown are middle to outside.

Soft toss
Have a partner toss balls underhand to you about 8 feet away from a diagonal position. Soft toss into a net or fence and work on turning the back foot and taking your hands to the ball. Working on short to long swings. This will also help with hand and eye coordination. This can also be done with wiffle balls if there is no fence or net.

Two-tee drill
This drill is for the player who swings down at the ball or for the player who swings up at the ball. If the batter swings down at the ball, put the higher tee in front of the back tee. Just the opposite for the player who swings up at the ball. Put the tee in the front lower than the tee in the back. Hit both the back tee ball and the tee ball in front of it.

Wiffle ball bat drill
Get a wiffle ball bat and take swings off the tee with wiffle balls. Use your left arm ONLY in this drill, with your right hand holding your left shoulder. This will keep the hands inside the ball and behind the ball plus will not allow for you to roll your wrist.

Wiffle ball pitches
Have a partner throw you off speed pitches and fast balls from about 10-12 feet away (depending on the age of the player). Work on hitting the ball where it is pitched.

Golf wiffle balls
This drill allows the hitter to hard focus on the ball from the pitchers hand to the contact zone. Same drill as wiffle ball drill but with golf size wiffle balls.

Fear of the ball drill
Take your regular stance and have someone throw tennis balls or wiffle balls at you. The hitter must turn his back and show his numbers to the ball. DO NOT forget to keep the bat out of the way when ducking. This is a good drill to get over the fear of a ball being pitched.

FOR ALL DRILLS - 3 SETS OF 10 REPS

The most important ingredient to having a strong swing is choosing the correct bat size. Make sure each ballplayer extends his arm at a 90-degree angle out away from his body, holding the bat for 10 seconds. If the bat is too heavy, he will eventually get tired of holding the bat and you will notice him straining. "Lighter is Better" - says Ted Williams, "the quicker your hands get through the zone - the better." Remember, Tony Gwynn used a 33-inch bat, 30.5 ozs. - and he was one of the greatest hitters of all time!

"For me the most effective way to practice hitting is to use a batting tee and a bag of wiffle balls. Tee it up and start hacking. The sooner you can hit a wiffle ball cleanly off a tee, the sooner you will become a better hitter. When you hit a wiffle ball off a tee correctly, it acts like a knuckleball. You can hear the air going through the ball. When you don't hit it correctly, you create spin on the ball and it goes all over the place. When the ball spins a lot, I make adjustments to correct my swing. Even after 18 years in the big leagues, every winter I go home and break out the tee and wiffle balls. It's not the most exciting thing, so you have to be creative. I put my headphones on and listen to my favorite music while I concentrate on my hitting technique." - Tony Gwynn

ALUMINUM VS. WOOD

Aluminum
Aluminum bats have gained attention recently due to reports of players being seriously injured when the baseball is hit by an aluminum bat. The very reason players enjoy using aluminum is the same reason players are being seriously injured. When a baseball meets with an aluminum bat, the player doesn't need to have great skill or great precision to have a great hit. The aluminum acts like a trampoline, absorbing only enough energy to shoot the ball back at a high velocity, regardless of what part of the bat meets with the ball, resulting in a good hit nearly every time. When the ball does meet with the sweet spot on the bat, the result is a phenomenal hit.

Ash
When players think of a wood bat, images of a splintering bat heading for first base come to mind. That's because ash, a softer, lighter, more porous wood than maple, was traditionally used in making wood baseball bats. Ash baseball bats not only have a tendency to splinter during play, they also dent and chafe from repeated use, making it difficult to get a uniform hit consistently. The quality of an ash baseball bat is determined mostly by the grain count in the wood. A higher quality ash bat will be made of wood with fewer growth rings, places where a bat would most likely split. This makes trying to produce uniform bats of the same size, weight and quality difficult.

Maple
Maple is harder than ash, which makes it a more solid choice for a wood bat. While maple was nearly discarded as an option for baseball bats because of its weight and lengthy drying time, advances in technology have made maple bats a viable option. Because of its dense grain, the denting and chafing from repeated use is minimal on maple bats. The less durable ash bats suffer severe damage from the same repeated use, making maple a more desirable and cost effective alternative to ash. When a maple bat and baseball connect, the player can immediately feel whether it was a good hit or not. There's nothing like the sound and feel of a baseball connecting with the sweet spot on a maple bat. A good-quality maple bat looks, feels and performs better, longer.