re: Ted Williams approach .

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Never swing at a pitch just because it’s a strike, unless you have 2 strikes. Swing at a pitch you can drive.

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I coach 11u Little League, and this is exactly what I teach the better hitters to do, especially with no strikes. Many of them are so afraid of striking out that they swing at every strike. They don’t understand that weak grounder could have been a line drive if they would have watched that first low and outside strike go by.

Please send resume to JJ along with your offensive philosophy. Let us know how the interview goes.
Just a guess, but you must have a kid on a 10u travel ball team that you mastered this approach at the plate.

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Stan Musial’s approach

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Saw Stan in his last game at old Bushch stadium in St. Louis. Stadium was packed. He had just become a grandfather.
We were high up/left in stadium with a support piling between us and the plate - but it was fantastic. - The excitement was contagious - Everybody loved Stan.
My son was almost 5 and was very excited about baseball - Baseball was always our favorite sport to play.
I was coaching a team in a league for 7-year olds at the time and wished he could have been on my team.

Ted Williams was the perfect combination of vision, mechanics, confidence and approach. The most important factor in being a great hitter is approach. The pitcher controls pitch selection, velocity and location. You can see the stitches on the ball and have the sweetest swing in the world but if you guess wrong or don’t adjust your approach, you’re an easy out.

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Ted Williams was the greatest hitter in the history of baseball and he's the last guy to hit .400...and his approach was shockingly simple:

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Ted Williams was the greatest hitter because he was a great hitter, not because he had some secret strategy. The worst coaches are the people who were just naturally great at their craft. There are exceptions to that, like Cael Sanderson, but it’s generally true.

See the ball,
Aim small,
Swing hard you might hit.

Derek Jeter said he went to the plate hunting fastballs and nothing else. Eventually, you’ll get your pitch, you just have to execute when you get it. A lot easier said than done though.

Ted Williams.


I never saw him play but I did see him manage. I went to a game in DC in the 1960s when he was managing the Washington Senators.

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If you think hitting is that easy, you probably never played after reaching puberty.

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the thought process of hitting is easy.
the physical act of actually doing it is hard.

Comparing college hitters to the best hitter that ever lived may not be fair, but hard to argue with anything Ted Williams would have said about hitting.