I've been thinking a lot about Ferrari's lately (I'm sure I'm not the only one) as I dreamed about what I was going to do with my $1.4B Powerball win.
(On a side note, does anybody know how many Ferrari's you can buy with negative $10 (my actual Powerball winnings???) :-)
Aside from purchasing a fleet of imaginary sports cars to park next to my imaginary private jet on my imaginary private island, I actually have talked quite a bit about Ferrari's in several of my recent lessons.
Here's how driving a Ferrari comes up in a youth baseball hitting lesson:
The secret formula to hitting a baseball really hard is as follows: Bat Speed + Barrel = Bomb.
If we hit the ball squarely with the sweet spot of the bat (the barrel) and the barrel is going really fast at the moment of impact, we're going to hit the ball hard.
To be clear, hitting a baseball with the barrel of a bat while the bat is going really fast is the most difficult thing to do in any sport - but the theory behind hitting a ball hard is no more complicated than the above equation.
So that said, let me ask you a question: have you ever seen your son take extremely aggressive hacks in the cage or during practice and absolutely crush the ball, only to then see him take extremely slow and defensive swings in a game?
Not swinging hard in a game, when a player is totally capable of doing so, is EXACTLY like buying a Ferrari and then never getting it out of the garage to take it for a spin.
What's the point of having a Ferrari if you're not going to drive it?
What's the point of working really hard to create bat speed in practice if you're not going to do the same in a game when it matters?
It's incredibly important that once our players have a swing that is mechanically sound enough to be making regular contact with the ball that we do everything in our power to encourage them to create as much bat speed as possible, especially in game situations. Even a player without an imperfect and still-developing swing from a mechanical standpoint can still adopt the ATTITUDE necessary to create as much bat speed as their bodies will allow, thus giving them a much better chance to hit the ball hard.
Let's make 2016 the "Year of Bat Speed!
(And The Year of Ferrari's...if we all win the lottery).