Your son's swing might not be the problem.
He rakes in the cage. Then Saturday comes and he can't catch up to a fastball, he's pulling off everything, and he's chasing balls in the dirt. Before you swipe your card on another hitting lesson, find out what's actually going wrong.
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Then Saturday rolls around.
Good balance. Quick hands. Line drives into both gaps. You watch him take BP and you wouldn't change much.
Late on the fastball. Front shoulder flying open. Rolling over to short. Walking back to the dugout with his head down again.
So you do what most dads do. You go after the swing. Maybe it's his hands. Maybe he needs a shorter stride. Somebody at the field says keep the front shoulder closed, and another lesson goes on the calendar.
Sometimes there really is something mechanically wrong. A lot of times he was just late getting ready. And a hitter who's late can make himself look like he's got a dozen different swing problems.
Those look the same on video. They need completely different fixes. Get it wrong and you're paying somebody to rebuild a swing that was never broken, while the real problem rides along to the next tournament.
You don't have to become his hitting coach.
But you ought to know enough to tell whether the instruction he's getting makes sense. The guide is built in 3 parts, written for dads with hitters from 8U all the way through high school.
Timing
Why your son has to get ready before he can hit. How to tell if he's late because of his swing or late getting himself ready to swing, plus 4 swing problems that often start with timing.
Practice
A kid can spend an hour in the cage getting really good at doing something wrong. How to match the drill to the problem, and how to know if the practice is working before the batting average catches up.
The Complete Hitter
Hittable vs. drivable. A real 2-strike approach. Situational at-bats. And why an 0-for-3 with 2 hard line drives might have been a good day.
One question changes the whole conversation.
When your son keeps getting beat by fastballs, most dads ask the instructor to fix it. I'd ask this instead.
"Is he late because of his swing, or is he late getting himself ready to swing?"
Now the coach has something specific to evaluate. A good one will have an answer. If he can't explain the plan, you just learned something worth knowing before the next session goes on your card.
The guide gives you a pile of questions like that one. Not so you can coach the coach. So you can tell real instruction from another round of swings.
I've sat in every chair in this game.
I played Division 1 baseball on scholarship until an injury ended it. I started and ran my own travel organization. I ran a baseball event in the Dominican Republic for 4 years alongside a Major League baseball family. And I've spent more than 35 years coaching.
None of that kept me from getting it wrong with my own kid. My oldest started at 3 and quit at 9, one week into All-Stars. I pushed too hard, too soon.
My youngest, Julian, hit .200 the summer he was 14. 10 hits. He was ready to quit too. This time I didn't reach for a bigger team or another stack of lessons. The next summer he hit over .450, started 3 years of varsity, and earned a full scholarship to a D1 JUCO.
I don't run a travel team. I don't sell lessons. I've got no reason to tell you anything but what I'd want somebody to tell me.
Find out what he actually needs.
Maybe it's a mechanical fix. Maybe it's timing, or pitch recognition, or a plan at the plate. Or maybe he's getting better and it just hasn't shown up in the box score yet. The guide helps you tell the difference.
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