Over the Top with Batting Gloves?

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I’m giving a hitting lesson, and the hitter decides about half way through the lesson (or later) to put on his batting gloves.

Mind you, I don’t care if you hit with batting gloves on or not. That’s a personal preference, and what ever it is that makes you feel comfortable, go with it.

But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why hitters forget about their batting gloves until:

• Their hands start to hurt (a sign of under-training?)
• The hit a ball off the end of the bat, or get jammed (Do batting gloves really take the sting away?  C’mon!)
• Their grip gets a little slippery
• They have to be asked if they wanted to wear them.

Just the other day, I was just about to start working with one of my hitters.  He grabbed his bat and his batting gloves from his bag, and made his way over to where we were starting the lesson: at the batting tee.

About five or six paces before stepping up to the tee, my hitter flung his batting gloves off to the side of the cage and continued to walk up to the tee with his bat.

Before he could step up to the tee, I asked him, “Why’d you toss the gloves away?”

He said, “Because we’re just hitting off the tee.”

Hmmm…

I responded, “Would you say that you wear your batting gloves pretty close to every time you hit when you’re playing a game?”

As expected he said, “I wear them all the time.”

I didn’t say anything, just looked at him with a look that prompted him to ask:

“I should put my gloves on now, right?”

(Note: I know that the example I’m about to use might date me, reveal the quality of movies I’m drawn to, or how I’ve filled most of my brain with “useless” info.  That being said…)

I asked my hitter if he knew who Sylvester Stallone was.  Fortunately he did.  (I’m not that old just yet!)  Pressing my luck, I asked if he was familiar with the Stallone movie, Over the Top.  Of course he had no idea.  (For the rest of you unfamiliar with the flick, Stallone managed to do a movie about a truck driver who also arm wrestles… in order to win custody of his son.)

I told him there was no need to run out and rent the movie, but there was a part of the movie that has to do with hitting.

That would be Stallone’s hat.

In the movie, Stallone wore his black mesh truck driver hat facing forward pretty much all the time.

Except when he was getting ready to arm wrestle.

Every time he stepped up to compete, he would turn his hat backwards.  As he put in it in the movie, “It’s like I flip a switch.”

That switch “turns on” the side of him that is focused 100% on beating his opponent, in arm wrestling.  When the match is over, the hat spins around, and he’s back to living his life outside of the arm wrestling arena.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles (see: Authentic Batting Practice) whenever you pick up a bat to work on your swing, (the one you want to repeat and take with you into the game) you want to create as close to a game-like atmosphere as possible.  In this case, if you wear batting gloves in games, wear them when you’re working on your swing.  That means off the tee, flips, short BP, whatever.  If you’re swinging, you’re wearing your gloves.

But to add a little more to the equation…

When you only put your batting gloves on when it’s time to hit, you are telling your brain to get ready also.  Your batting gloves will act exactly like the hat Rocky, I mean, Stallone wore in Over the Top.  The gloves are your mental trigger to go into “hitting mode.”

If you don’t wear batting gloves, use your helmet.  If that doesn’t do it for you, find something that does.  It can make that much of a difference.

My hitter listened, and actually agreed with me.  When it was time to pick up the balls, he took his gloves off, and started putting the balls in the bucket.

I asked him, “Why’d you take off your gloves?”

He answered, “Because I’m not hitting.”

Exactly.

Keep Swingin’,

Coach Bones