There are, simply, more swings taken, and there is more time and more thought put into those swings (which some say isn't always a good thing). There is early BP and extra BP and occasionally even in-game BP. There are extensive video libraries - available in the video room or on their smart phones - that allow players to review whatever they want: an opposing pitcher's fastballs, curveballs and changeups, their pitches in certain counts, the hitter's swings against specific pitches on any count in any previous at-bat. There are better, more varied, iterations of those pitching machines. There are batting cages out of the fans' eyesight where players work on flip drills or hit against pitching machines. If it rained or they covered the field, you couldn't go in the cage - you just had to come on the field and play.' In Milwaukee, I don't know how many days we didn't have it. 'Batting practice was primarily done on the field when I started. 'I can't put a timeline on it, but it has changed significantly,' Hall of Famer and 3,000 Hit Club member Paul Molitor said. Like many timeless traditions, batting practice has evolved over the decades. Which isn't to say this baseball constant hasn't changed. 'It's just that time of year where we cut it down two or three minutes per group.' 'You only have so many bullets in those hands,' Seattle manager and former Tigers hitting coach Lloyd McClendon said. Hongīatting practice is reliably consistent from the start of the season through the playoffs, with only the slightest change as we roll deeper into September and call-ups add to the number of players taking part or veteran players scale back slightly on the number of swings they take to rest their bodies. Even the players you think might not need it - say, Mike Trout - take batting practice every day. You don't find fans chasing footballs outside Soldier Field like they chase baseballs outside Wrigley Field. And with the chance to catch home run balls in the bleachers, BP is infinitely more entertaining than watching football players stretch and do jumping jacks. But no sport's pre-competition drills compare to the importance, history and beauty of baseball's batting practice. More on that later).īasketball players have shootarounds.

It is as familiar as stirrup socks, with the additional bonus that BP viewing is still available to those of us who can get out of work and to the stadium early enough. It's time for batting practice, a pregame convention ballplayers have been doing practically since Old Hoss Radbourn was a young pony. Antsy hitters tuck their bats under their arms and pull on their gloves as they approach home for the routine that will prepare them to face 95 mph fastballs, biting curves and nasty sliders.

Another coach twists his arm like a windmill as he prepares to throw. A coach pushes a cart filled with baseballs from the dugout to a low platform in front of the pitcher's mound. The scene: As music fills the air, the grounds crew wheels a large, netted cage to the plate. Scully has been calling Dodgers' games for 65 years this ritual goes back much, much further than that, back almost to baseball's beginnings. It's late afternoon, and as you glance again at the clock and wonder whether the workday will ever end, your favorite players are where you want to be - at the ballpark beginning a daily ritual almost as comforting to them as the sound of Vin Scully's voice is to you.

Soft toss talking alphabet ball