I speak from my personal baseball experience. (Credit Coach Dave Seddon)
If you’re a high school athlete, maybe the only thing you didn’t miss these past few weeks is your coach correcting your flaws. Teenagers generally think they know best, which explains why they are often at odds with their parents. This generally applies to their view of coaches in sports—at least, it did for me.
As a high school baseball player with Hackensack High in northern New Jersey, my coach, Dave Seddon, wanted to overhaul my batting stance completely. Looking back, I don’t know why I fought him so hard, considering my previous batting stance had not done any wonders for me. I was in the lineup for my defense at shortstop on my freshman team and my sophomore and junior years on junior varsity. I hit in the low .200s as a JV player.
Between my junior and senior years in American Legion ball, Seddon advised me to aim to hit .250 on varsity the following year. To achieve that, he suggested I alter my stance. Until then, I had used a thick-handled bat, choked up on it, and held the bat vertically while I crouched with my feet together and took a long stride toward the ball. It wasn’t a pretty stance or very effective, but pigs grow accustomed to their pigsty and don’t want to be cleaned up.
In practice, Seddon broadened my stance so that my feet were wide apart, and I took a very short stride. He had me hold the bat back, parallel to my body. You will get the idea if you watch YouTube videos of Joe DiMaggio’s stance. (I may have stood like DiMaggio, but I’m not saying I hit like him. The longest hitting streak I had my senior year was four games!) I also switched to a thin-handled bat, a Vada Pinson model.
After a couple of unsuccessful at-bats in an American Legion game, I approached the plate for at-bat No. 3. Seddon, coaching at third, told me to assume the new stance. I shook my head vigorously, but he insisted. I faced a flame thrower, Rex Peters, who had overpowered me in my first two plate appearances. As I waited in my new stance, he reared back and fired. I swung, missed, and looked down the third-base line pleadingly at my coach. He wouldn’t relent. I stepped back into the box in my new stance. Peters threw another laser, and again, I swung and missed. I looked down at Seddon again, but he wasn’t changing the game plan. I stepped in again, and Peters threw another heater. To my great surprise, I connected solidly this time and smacked a hard line drive into right-center for a single.
From that day on, I was sold. Being on the thin side, neither terribly strong nor fast, I spent that fall and winter working out. I consulted our track coach on how to gain speed and did what he said. I asked a P.E. teacher how best to utilize our new weight room to my advantage, and I went into school early three times a week to do as he suggested. I swung a bat with a donut 100 times a night in my bedroom.
When spring came around, I was amazed when, in an early-season game, I slammed a curveball over the left fielder’s head for a double. I hadn’t hit a ball over an outfielder’s head since Little League. I did it again in a league game and then again in a scrimmage against the Lafayette College (Pa.) junior varsity college team.
A memory always: Me hitting a homer and being greeted by teammates (personal photo)
The culmination of my new stance and hard work came in the final league game of the season. We were 15-2 and hosting Wayne Valley, the second-place team with a record of 14-3. We had to win the game to win the title outright. In the second inning, our all-county catcher, Art Sarro, hit a tremendous home run over the left fielder’s head that rolled a mile (we didn’t have fences) for a home run. I batted after Sarro in the seventh slot. I picked out a knee-high fastball and drove it between the left and center fielders. It also rolled a long way as I circled the bases for a home run (my first since Little League) to give us a 2-0 lead (photo to the left).
We went on to win the game 4-1 and clinch the league title with a 16-2 mark. I hit .294 on the year and was named the all-league second baseman (I shifted there from shortstop my senior year).
That summer of 1971, what was essentially our high school team played in the Connie Mack League and went on to play in the Connie Mack World Series in Albuquerque, N.M. Coach Seddon accompanied us to the series and served as an assistant coach. I had not hit well during the Connie Mack regular season. While in New Mexico, Seddon noticed that I had reverted in some ways to my old stance and had me make the necessary corrections. Immediately in batting practice, I started hitting the ball with authority again. That carried over into the World Series. We were eliminated after three games in the double-elimination tournament featuring the best eight teams in the country, but I went 5-for-10 at the plate.
It’s hard to see this when you are young, but high school coaches are in that position because (a) they probably played the sport; (b) they have been teaching the sport for years and have helped countless players before you; (c) they are not in it for the money (coaches are probably laughing at this one) and (d) they want you to improve and genuinely have your best interests at heart.
So when you return to the field or the court, whenever that may be… listen up!
Dave Seddon, 1991, New Jersey State Hall of Fame Baseball Century Club
________________
Matt Sieger, now retired sports reporter/columnist who worked for New York State and California newspapers, did his undergraduate work at Cornell University and received a master’s in journalism from Syracuse University. This article first appeared in The Vacaville Reporter on April 7, 2020, when local high school sports were shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interesting and educational. Listen to good cousel, is the message. To ignore it is like not paying attention to your parents who love you more then imaginable.