CHAPTER XII

Hitting style—Naturalness at the plate—Simmons’ freak batting stance—Joey Sewell has ideal stance—The Ruthian swing—How it develops power—Selecting the proper bat—Timing an important factor in hitting—How to improve timing and swing.

When Al Simmons first broke into the American League a lot of the wise boys predicted that he wouldn’t last out his first season.

“He steps in the bucket” they said—meaning that when he takes his stride his left foot (Al is a right hand hitter) pulls away from the plate.

“A sucker for a curve ball” the pitchers told each other. And then tried him out. Al promptly knocked their curves to all corners of the lot—and he’s still doing it. And stepping in the bucket, just the same.

Which just goes to show that there’s no rule governing the good hitter. I don’t think there’s another man in either league who could stand at the plate the way Al does, and still hit the size of his hat. But stepping in the bucket is Al’s natural hitting form—and what is natural is generally best in baseball.

Al overcomes that back step by using an exceptionally long bat—the longest in the league I think, and just as long as the baseball law will allow. The result is that he can reach the outside corner for a curve if he has to, and at the same time he’s far enough away that the inside stuff doesn’t bother him.

Understand I’m not recommending that all hitters “step in the bucket.” And I’m not holding Al’s hitting form up as an example. I’m just illustrating the point that there’s no rule governing the good hitters. There’s no one more off form, than Al, and mighty few better hitters. It all goes back to the same thing.

The most important thing about hitting is to be natural, and be easy.

George Burns, the Cleveland first baseman, is another hitter whose stance at the plate is entirely off form. George stands perfectly straight, with his feet right together. There’s no other man in either league who stands that way. Even if they tried it the chances are they would be a complete bust. Yet George hits—and hits well. And what is more he hits most any sort of pitching.

Joey Sewell has always appealed to me as about the ideal type of left handed hitter. Sewell stands up there flat footed, feet fairly far apart and firm set in the box. He takes his swing from the shoulder, putting his body into the pivot only at the last minute. The result is that he’s a hard man to fool. The strikeout records prove that. For the past three or four seasons Joey has struck out less than any man in the league. One season he went through 154 ball games and struck out only three times. A fellow like that is a real hitter.

Sewell hits a ball hard and far too. He doesn’t get his body into the swing like the “swing hitters” do, but he does get a lot of wrist snap. If you’ve ever taken any golf lessons you know how the golf pro coaches you to use your wrists. Hitters of the Sewell type use the same sort of wrist snap when they hit a baseball. Tony Lazzeri is another chap who gets most of his drive from his wrist. Tony used to be a boiler maker, and constant use of the heavy boiler-maker tools plus the arm exercise has developed his forearm and wrist muscles to the limit. Tony really is built slight and to look at his hands you’d never dream of their power. His fingers are long and tapering, his palms are narrow and almost girl-like. But he has a wrist and forearm like steel. That’s what gives him his driving power at the bat and his snap throw from second.

No ball player ever made good either as a hitter or a fielder unless he had well developed wrist and forearm muscles. There are a lot of exercises that can be used to get that development.

One of the common methods used by ball players to strengthen the wrist and forearm is to buy a five or ten cent rubber ball, and carry it around, gripping and relaxing it all the time. If you do that for fifteen or twenty minutes a day you can strengthen the forearm a lot—and if you don’t think those muscles get a real workout by gripping, just try it. The first fifteen minutes of that exercise will make your arm ache clear to the elbow.

Earl Combs uses this method. Earl had a bad throwing arm when he came into the league, but gripping exercises have strengthened his wrists and his throwing has improved a lot.

I never had any trouble that way myself. My arms and wrists and shoulders have always been well developed. If anything I’m a little “top heavy,” and the thing I have to watch most is my legs. I’ve learned a lot of things in the past two or three years, among others the value of proper exercise. For the last three winters I’ve worked out regularly in a gymnasium, and there I’ve spent most of the time on exercises that would develop my legs and keep my waist line down at the same time.

One of the common faults of kid hitters particularly, is that they don’t use the proper bat. Most of them try to swing bats that are too heavy, figuring of course that the heavier the bat, the more distance they can get. That’s wrong. Any time a player uses a bat that feels heavy in his hands, he’s making a mistake. The ideal bat is one that balances perfectly, one that can be swung with the same easy, smooth motion with which you swing your arms. A too heavy bat requires a jerk to start on it’s way, and once underway it requires additional effort to direct it’s course. Naturally that makes a jerky, choppy swing. Not so good.

The average weight of bats used by big leaguers is 36 ounces. The bat I use is much heavier, but you must remember that I’m a pretty big boy. And I’m cutting down on bat weight as the years go by. A few seasons ago I used a 54 ounce bat, long and with the weight well at the end. Now I’m using a 46 ounce club—and each season when I have a new set of bats made, I have an additional ounce taken off.

The longest bat in the big leagues is swung by Al Simmons. I’ve already told about that. The shortest bat I ever saw in my day was used by Whitey Witt—a stubby club with a thick handle. The reason for that was, that as a lead off man Whitey’s business was to get on base. He bunted a lot, and a thick handled bat gave him a chance to get hold of balls thrown inside.

I don’t know who uses the lightest bat today, but Wally Schang, the old Yankee catcher, uses one of the lightest. Alongside my bat, Schang’s looks like a toothpick. Earl Combs uses a light bat, too. Rogers Hornsby is another chap who uses a fairly light model. So does Sam Rice of the Senators.

Now and then some player will come along with a freak bat of some sort. Like the old bottle bat that Heine Groh used to use. So far as I can see there’s nothing to that sort of thing—except perhaps in the mind of the man using the bat. If some freak stick will give him confidence, why it’s a good thing. After all confidence is one of the biggest things in hitting.

All big leaguers have their favorite bats. For years I used a big black model that the boys called “Black Betsy.” I had the same identical thing in several other “sticks” but somehow that black one had a little more appeal. And I used it for the better part of three seasons before it finally broke on me.

Players often trade bat models, but they guard their pet bats as if they were solid gold. Earl Combs is one of the easiest going, most pleasant even-tempered chaps I ever saw. But once last summer I saw him when I think he would gladly have committed murder—all over a bat.

Earl had a pet stick that he had been using all season long. He protected it like a child, and he wouldn’t even use it in hitting practice. “That bat is full of basehits,” he would say, “and there’s no need wasting them on hitting practice.”

One afternoon Hug sent Mike Gazella up to hit just as batting practice ended. Mike didn’t look around to select a bat, just took the first one that came handy. It happened to be Combs’ pet club. On the second pitch Mike swung with everything he had and broke the bat square in two. I thought Earl would crown him. I never saw a man get any more angry for a few minutes than Combs was—and for two weeks after that he couldn’t speak to Mike without making some crack about that bat.

A few years ago Sam Crawford, the old Detroit outfielder and slugger, sent me a sample bat from the coast. It was one of those trick things made out of four separate sections, pasted and fitted together. Sam wanted me to try it out and see how it worked.

The first time up I hit the ball over the fence for a home run and during the entire game I got myself two doubles and a single in addition to the home run. Naturally I was tickled pink. In the clubhouse that night I had Woodie send Sam an order for six of the bats.

They came along a few days later, and Colonel Ruppert happened to be in the clubhouse when they arrived. He took a peek at the bill and threw his hands in the air. Those bats were listed at six dollars each.

“Well, Ruth,” the Colonel commented, “I guess we keep these bats in the safe, eh, with the mortgages and family jewels.”

The funny part of it all is, that a few days later some manager protested that the bats were illegal—since they were made of four separate pieces of wood. As a result the umpires ruled them out, and so far as I know the good Colonel still has those six bats stored away “in the safe with the mortgages and the family jewels.”

Harry Heilmann gave me a bat a week or so before the season ended last year. It was one that he had been hitting with, and he liked it. “Try this out in the world series,” he told me, “it’s full of base hits. There’s only one provision though,” he added. “You’re not to use it against the Detroit club.”

Ball players are always trading bats. Goose Goslin never comes to New York that he doesn’t come over to our dugout and look over all the bats. Wallie Schang is another one who is always looking for “good wood.” And very frequently a couple of players will get together and trade bats like little kids swap stamps for the collection albums.

The best woods for bats is either ash or hickory. Both are tough hard woods with plenty of “spring” (elasticity). The hickory is a little heavier than the ash. For myself I usually use hickory, but most of the boys prefer ash. In buying a bat, the chief thing to look for is a smooth even grain.

Joe Dugan for years has used a black bat of Cuban wood—a soft light weight wood. Joe likes a light bat and he figures that the Cuban makes up in “spring” what it may lack in weight. And he certainly can drive a ball with it, you have to hand him that.

But when all is said and done, confidence is the biggest thing in hitting. Fellows who go up there to the plate with a lot of confidence are pretty apt to hit.

Fellows get queer notions in hitting. They have superstitions about their bats: they have superstitions about certain pitchers. Hitters will tell you in all seriousness that certain pitchers have their number, or that certain other pitchers are always easy.

Late last season I started a stunt which gave the boys quite a laugh for a time. I started “notching” my bat for home runs, like the old gun-men used to notch their guns when they killed a man. Every time I would hit a home run I would cut a notch in the bat handle of the club I had used. At first the boys began laughing, but as September came around and I started hitting all sorts of pitching for home runs they changed their tune.

I have one bat in the club house that has seven notches in the handle, and another one that has eleven. Eleven is about as many as a bat will hold for the minute you start notching the hitting surface the umpires will throw the bat out. The whole thing started as a sort of “kid,” and as a matter of fact I wasn’t superstitious about those notches at all. But most of the gang thought I was. And I did accomplish one thing. By putting those notches in the bat I identified my own clubs and the other fellows would leave my bats strictly alone.

Speaking of funny customs there’s the old, old habit of “boning” bats. Fellows were doing it when I came into the league, and I suppose they’ll still be doing it fifty years from now. “Boning” a bat consists in rubbing it with a bottle or a bone or some hard smooth substance of that nature. The idea is that such constant rubbing smooths the surface, fills in and contracts the wood pores on the surface and prevents breaking. I’ve seen fellows sit for hours at a time boning away at their favorite bats. Some of them stain the wood as well. Frankie Frisch never chews tobacco, but he used to use tobacco to rub his bat with—working it into the grain until the bat looked as though it had been stuck in some tobacco vat. The umpires don’t permit that any more—but “boning” comes within the law, and everyone does it.

One other thing while we’re on the subject of hitting. All hitters have different styles. Some swing flat footed, others take a long stride. Some choke and some swing. But there are certain features in which all hitters—if they’re good ones—act alike.

They have to have perfect balance, perfect timing and a good eye. Balance and timing are much the same. It is timing which enables a man to meet the ball at the exact instant when all his body is thrown into the swing. It’s timing which enables a man to hit fast and slow balls with equal ease. It is timing which, more than any one thing, is the secret of real hitting.

And the unfortunate thing about it is that timing is one thing which you can’t teach. It’s born into a man. You either have it or you haven’t. Little kids, starting to go to singing school, are the same way. Either they have a musical sense or they haven’t—and if they haven’t they never acquire it.

All forms of athletics depend on timing. It’s the secret of golf and handball and tennis. It’s the secret of boxing, and it’s the secret of football offense. A few years ago I saw Red Grange run for three touchdowns against the University of Pennsylvania eleven. And the thing that impressed me most was not his speed, or his power. It was his timing. It was so perfect that he could avoid tackles by the split part of an inch. His timing was so perfect that in going through the line he always managed to reach his hole at the very instant when it was open widest. And that is timing developed to the last degree.

Go out to the ball game some day and watch the really great hitters. You’ll notice that they don’t seem to swing any harder, or with any longer arc than the poorer hitters. But they have perfect timing sense. That’s the most important thing in batting.

As I said before, a man either has a sense of timing or he hasn’t. But you can improve you’re timing. Lots of times I go into slumps, as do all other hitters. The first thing I look to is my timing. I try swinging a bit later, or a bit earlier. I shorten or lengthen my stride. I experiment with every angle of timing. And usually I can correct my fault, even though I may not know exactly what it is.