The bat is actually held with the fingers, not the palm of the hand. An easy way to

explain the grip to a child is to have him hold his hands in front of his body, palms up,

with the first finger of the lead hand next to the little finger of the top hand. The

"knocking" knuckles (second joint from the tip of the finger) of those two fingers

should be next to each other. Lay the bat into the hands and have the player wrap

his fingers around the bat without moving his hands. This grip allows for a much

firmer grip on the bat as well as it permits a quicker swing.

If this were easy enough to be described in a few sentences, we would have more

.400 hitters in major league baseball. This is a very difficult skill and we will only

touch on the very basics here. These basics, however, are critical to good hitting.

- Make sure the contact point is slightly to in front of the front foot (towards the pitcher).

Compared to hitting the ball that is directly in front of the body there is much more

power as well as more time to generate bat speed.

- The wrists snap through the swing fairly late in the process. If the wrists start

swinging too early, they will have passed their peak speed by the time it is time to hit

the ball. A good test to see if your wrists are swinging too early is to place your back

foot at the base of the back stop (well, maybe 2 -3 inches in front of the backstop).

You can take a normal swing from that position without hitting the back stop.

- The plane of the swing is slightly downward. This puts the proper spin on the ball.

See the physics of batting.

All players should use the grip that goes across the four seams of the ball (so that as

the ball spins out of the hand, four seams can be seen as opposed to two). The four

seam throw will sail less and travel farther than the two seam throw. Unfortunately

this only show up when the kids are strong enough to make the ball "tail" (curve, but

not like a sharp curve ball) on a long throw (about Pee Wee for most kids). It's a

good habit to get into early to always find the four seam grip on every throw.

Practice feeling for it without looking.

Players with large enough hands should hold the ball with two fingers. The ball is

held with the finger tips with a slight gap between the ball and the part of the hand

where the first finger runs down to the thumb. The thumb is mainly for holding the ball

in place. The fingers provide all the control. Don't curl the thumb so that the pad of

the thumb rests on the ball as this will place undo strain on the forearm.

Players with smaller hands should use three or even four fingers on the ball. Make

sure the ball is held with the finger tips and not wedged into the palm of the hand.