would I be better off using a tee or just tossing a ball in the air.(i play baseball)?

Question

i've been hitting by tossing it up, and i'm making sure i'm not wasting my time.

Answer 1

tossing a baseball up in the air is about the worst thing you can do to practice hitting a baseball.Not only are you wasting your time but you are hurting your game as well. It totally messes up your swing and teaches you poor footwork and mechanics, to upercut and messes up your timing. The only real way I know of to practing hitting a live ball on your own is off of a tee. Might I suggest a metal tee. Sound crazy? Maybe but it really works. You get you a tire rim and weld on a metal pipe about the same height as your normal strike zone without extending it very much in either direction. Then you can put some type of rubber hose over it at the top to rest the ball on, but only extend it a maximum of a couple inches from the top. A metal tee will not only teach you swing correctly and improve your hand eye coord through repetition like a normal tee, it will also unlike a normal tee punish you when you fail. After a few hundred swings on that thing your technique will improve or your hands will be numb from the pain. Oh and make sure you use an aluminum bat with not very thick padding on the handle for best results As my coach would say WACK IT!! , he made us use one without any padding :)

Obviously the best ways for perfecting swing mechanics are soft toss sessons where someone is watching you, who can point out to you mistakes in your swing mechanics and help you correct them. But if you can't get someone to help you with that who knows what you are doing, the tee is your best bet.

Answer 2

I would hit off a tee. It helps your swing stay level and makes sure your contact is all line drives. It helps avoid you dropping your shoulder (which happens when you toss the ball up) and makes sure you are hitting the ball solid and level with your feet set and moving how they should be. If you want to toss the ball up, I'd have someone else do it (called soft-toss) so you can make sure your feet are set and swing is level.

Answer 3

Toss the ball. You will train your eye to hit it at various levels. Here is another tip. When I was a kid, I would pretend I was the starting lineup of a major league team, (we only had sixteen then) and simply swing the bat at imaginary pitches. Just stand in the yard, and swing the bat. I must admit that I felt a bit goofy about doing it, but did it anyway. I thought it helped me with my stance and swing. Needless to say, I was thrilled to read in Roger Angel's "Boys Of Summer", years later, George Shuba describe doing the same thing in his basement, during the off season. Furthermore, I heard Ted Williams, in an interview, say to do it, because it helped retain hitting skills. If it was good enough for those guys, it should be good enough for anyone.

Answer 4

I would switch off because tossing it in the air gets you to focus on hand-eye coordination as if you were batting but don't consistently do this because you will develop a certain stance which wont go correctly with batting swtich off with the tee so you can work on switch hitting and bunting etc.

Answer 5

personally i would use the tee, since throwing the ball up can cause you to develop a loopy swing(undercut). With the tee, you can practice hitting outside pitches or inside and its just better overall

Answer 6

A tee is a more consistent way to develop hand eye coordination and will give you a level swing

Answer 7

shop making use of the wiffle ball, in case you get the different ball that is going to fly and u be hitting hr continuously, for the bat u shud get a plastic bat with a huge barrel, its plenty relaxing.

Answer 8

I would go with a tee. You can work more on your hand position (going the other way, etc....)........