Keeping It Simple

 Throughout her baseball and softball career, Clare never lacked for “coaches” wanting to tinker with her swing.  They had ideas about V-loads and L-loads; hips (which sounded an awful lot like doors forever swinging open); and whatnot.  I preferred to keep it simple to the point of ridiculous:  See ball, hit ball.  Allow me a few words in my defense.

First off, I should say, “See ball in the strike zone.”  Unless you’re the second coming of Yogi Berra or Vladimir Guerrero, don’t swing at anything outside the strike zone.  As I’ve said on numerous occasions, my daughter will live to be a hundred before she forgets my rather sarcastic question asked several hundred times over the years, “And where was the ball going to go if you’d managed to hit it?”   Foul, if she was lucky.  And I’ll live to be a hundred before I stop telling Clare to lay off the high stuff, even though she actually could go up and get it.  I just thought it was a bad habit to get into.

Next, know the situation.  There are times to go for the long ball and times to move the runner along; don’t swing for the fences every at-bat.  Clare was good that way, though her notion of moving the runner along involved extra base-hits more than grounders to the right side of the infield.  Whatever works.

Along those same lines, I was impressed to read what Sox starter Dylan Covey said in the Tribune the other day about his turnaround from last season.  What it comes down to is another simple directive—throw strikes.  Or, as Covey put it, “I’m not scared to throw pitches over the plate now.  And confidence has a lot to do with it, knowing that even if I do miss my spot, the action on my pitches will make up for it.”  Covey added that he’s “attacking hitters and trying to get to two strikes as quickly as possible.”

Simple, sweet and true.