Baseball camp prepares youngsters for future, enhances basic skills
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EDWARDSVILLE – Even the best players worked over many years to develop the skills necessary to become top-notch baseball players; they learned the skills needed to hit and field and play their positions at the youth-league level and continued to refine and add to their skills as time went on.
Even the nuances of hitting and fielding didn't come to the best players overnight, and for the past two weeks, Edwardsville High's baseball program and coaches have hosted a camp for youngsters at the grade- and middle-school levels designed to teach them not only the fundamentals of the game, but to refine and develop nuances in their skills that will help them as they continue to play the game.
“We're just winding down our camps; this is our last day,” said Tiger coach Tim Funkhouser as the camp sessions came to a close Thursday morning at the EHS sport complex. “We really enjoy this time as a coaching staff to be able to see the different kids and to be able to teach them some fundamentals and enjoy playing (the game) and also give them a mind-set, kind of a process to sift through and the learning, the developmental process to hopefully give them; hopefully, give them some information and give them enough practice.”
The camp was divided into two one-week sessions; this week was the Advanced Hitting Camp for players in grades 3-9, in which participants entered the batting cages in one-hour sessions, working on aspects of hitting with the use of tees and machines as well as dry-swing drills, and the Tiger Baseball Academy, in which players in grades 7-9 worked on drills in both fielding and hitting, with coaches videoing participants for analysis, along with written evaluations on things particpants did well and what they need to work on.
Last week was the Complete Skills Camp, which included instruction on pitching and catching, hitting, fielding, base running and bunting and the opportunity to develop those skills.
“We do a video analysis (of their hitting) of them,” Funkhouser said. “We compare them to different Major-League (players) or some college (players) too and give them a visual of what their bodies are doing. It's interesting for some of them; (they'll say) 'oh my gosh, I can't believe I do that!', but then, to show them, compared to what some other things, they not only hear the information we're providing them, but they're able to get the visual effect too.”
What many many not realize is that there is much that goes into hitting a baseball and to hit it well, especially in the way a player wants to hit the ball and send it into a certain direction. “There's a lot that goes into hitting,” Funkhouser said. “Hitting's the most difficult skill in all of sport; the pitcher's out there trying to get you out and disrupt your timing and you're there trying to put a good swing on a good pitch. The main focus this week is talking about approach; what are you thinking about?
“We want to be on offense; we got the bat in our hand, we want to be on offense and we want to get a hitter's pitch and we want to put ourselves in a position where we don't fear hitting with two strikes, so we talk about some of those things.”
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