Former Major League catcher Erik Kratz and author Tim Brown explain.

Good hitters trying to remain good hitters and bad hitters hoping to become good hitters had a common prescription: more hitting. As much as possible. So, thrown baseballs. Tossed baseballs. Flipped baseballs. Baseballs sitting on tees. Baseballs connected to rubber bands. Baseballs shot out of machines. Tiny baseballs. Baseballs painted different colors. No baseballs at all.

They call this batting practice, though it could also be known as confidence practice, as hardly anyone earning a living at it has ever missed a batting practice pitch/toss/flip

Great topic this, how much of batting practice is confidence practice?

I’m not a baseball pro, but I suspect it’s not all about hitting the ball, but how the ball is hit. Is it hit early? Is it hit late?

And the where is it hit? Is it hit to right field? Left field? These specifics can be honed, no?

Consider the sentence structure here too.

Great stuff.

An opening twenty one word sentence with a colon. Then, afterward, a rat-a-tat-tat of three and two word sentences. Erik Kratz/Tim Brown close the paragraph with a thirty one word sentence with two commas. Fourteen verbs total between the two paragraphs.

There’s the build up in the opening paragraph has you hanging, all of these types of batting practice will undoubtedly lead to improvement. But then Erik Kratz/Tim Brown reveals, no, this isn’t all physical improvement, it’s a hopeful, mental, improvement.

Brown, Tim. Kratz, Erik. The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game. New York: Twelve, 2023.