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Breaking in a New Glove

Baseball Basics:
How To Break In Your New Baseball Glove

The way you break in your baseball glove, there’s some really old traditional ways of doing it. One is just simple glove oil you can buy at any sporting goods stores and usually you just kind of rub the oil through the pocket of the glove and maybe certain parts of the glove that you feel need to bend the way you want the glove to bend. Some old things that I did, I put three baseballs in the glove so it kind of created a nice pocket and then I would just tie, you know, a string around it or a rope. You can actually take the glove and just put it underneath your bed, put a few balls in it and again shape it. So there’s some really old school ways, and then there’s just basically get some glove oil and just kind of rub it in there.

Taking Your BP into the Game

Question:

My 11 year old son hits much better in the more competitive AAU than in LL. In AAU, he really drives the ball. Line drive extra base hits. His mechanics are good. quick hands, uses legs, stays down on the ball. In LL, he doesn’t use his legs, swings at bad pitches, doesn’t drive the ball. I know its a mental thing. He says he is tense. I think its a holdover from last year. His first year in LL majors, he did not hit well then either. (partly because he got hit on the elbow.) He works really hard, takes extra BP. But this is primarily mental. How can I help him overcome this psychological barrier.

Answer:

It’s true when people say that this game is more mental then physical. You talked about him taking extra batting practice, which is very good, however how muck time is he spending creating good mental habits. As much time as he spends in the cage he should spend visualising himself having success. Let him go over mentally all the success he has had in his AAU league. Have him go up to the plate with nothing on his mind except him knowing that he going to have success in that at bat. With this attitude he will always dominate.

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