Why Is Hitting The Inside Part of The Baseball So Important?

Why Is Hitting The Inside Part of The Baseball So Important?

"It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square." - Pete Rose (The All-Time Hit King)

From the time hitting is taught to a young athlete, many coaches preach the importance staying inside of the baseball. While many of us still playing or now coaching understand that this has been preached, we must understand some of the flaws with the vocabulary used when saying this term. I will be discussing this concept and more, while also giving you the how and why behind hitting the inside of the baseball is crucial for success.

Before I go any deeper with this concept, it is important to know that as a hitter when you step into the batter's box to hit, you are automatically inside of the baseball. Meaning that the ball that is being thrown at you is on the inside part of you. For a pitcher to pitch the ball to you and have you outside of the pitch, the pitcher must throw the ball and have it go behind you. The only time a hitter would not be inside of the baseball would be if he does something mechanically wrong.

(Evidence of the pitch being inside of the hitter)

As a hitter, a baseball player, and a human being we all must have a purpose behind what we are doing. If you were to ask many hitters on what they want to do when they hit, they will say I want to hit the ball hard. Now this may sound like an acceptable answer to the question, there is a flaw with this answer. Rather not a purpose with the approach. If we want to simply hit the ball hard, then we are not being detailed enough about what we exactly want to do. As a player the desired effect of hitting the baseball is to drive the ball, to hit line drives and home runs. The only way to be a consistent hitter with contact is to hit the inside part of the baseball.

You may now be asking, how and why do you hit the inside of the baseball? First to answer the question of how. If you are going to hit the inside of the baseball, you would want to hit the inside seam of the baseball.   If we hit the inside seam of the baseball, then we will hit the absolute middle of the baseball, allowing us as Mr. All-Time Hit King Pete Rose said, to hit the ball square. If you try to hit the middle of the baseball, then you will hit the outside of the baseball and it will cause you to hook your swing and cause plenty of rollover ground balls to the shortstop if you are a right-handed hitter, or to the second basemen if you are a left-handed hitter. 

The reason why you want to hit the inside seam of the baseball is because the way our hand-eye coordination is set up within our body. How do we know this is true? As  professional hitting consultant Kevin Wilson from "KWB Radio Podcast" has answered, "Doctors. Doctors have told me that." If science proves it, then we must accept it as fact.

Any pitch that is thrown at you as a hitter, the purpose must be to find the inside seam of the baseball. It doesn't matter if the pitch is a fastball, curveball, changeup, slider, or knuckleball, find the inside seam. Think about it, if we hit the inside seam of the baseball we will have success at driving the baseball by barreling up the ball. This purposeful approach is applicable to pull side swings, up the middle swings, and opposite field swings. Simply put, this  works.