The Art of Hitting .300

This is the 'source' information from which all useable functional,and common sense hitting instruction comes from.It's still just as relevant in '08 as it was back when the White Sox had those horrible uniforms.(and haircuts) This book De-bunks a lot of the 'Red Herrings' of Hitting folklore. I am constantly amazed as a player and coach how much out and out, wrong information is out there. Lau wrote this book right at the advent of the use of video. He was the first person to analyze a swing in all it's entirety. He not only came up with the '10 absolutes' but he points out what is NOT important...(stance,elbows up,staying back...whatever that means?) No more 'squashing butterflies and squishing bugs'.... He speaks of the importance of: Rhythm,weight shift You Hit off of your FRONT foot. You go back to get forward! You do not keep your eye on the ball....Your head goes down when you swing. and all importantly...tough as nails Charlie LAU talking about what most guys don't want to...fear and tension in hitting. etc,etc,etc. I was struggling at the plate when I bought this book. I was a power hitting .200 pull hitter. I retired from adult ball,hitting twice that. More importantly I taught everything I learned in this book to my son who has won a few league batting titles,though he still gets the occasional snide remark about how his swing 'looks' (LOL!) I have taught many sub .150 hitting kids how to hit .400...it always lights up a kids face to find out I don't give a darn where his elbow is (or how many bugs he squashes) I recently stepped into a cage after not having touched a bat in over a year. I drilled 10 consecutive line drives into the L-screen. I thought of Charlie's ghost smiling down as I imagined 'hitting the pitcher in the forehead' and driving it 'back through the box' Charlie lives forever!! I know this book isn't cheap because it's so hard to find (they need to reprint it!!) BUT... It'll be worth every penny !! -solpig

If you want to learn to hit the right way, this might be the best investment you will ever make. Like another reviewer wrote, though, you must be willing to do the work to learn the lessons the book teaches. Also, if you just want to be a home run hitter, this book is not for you; a home run is only a pleasant mistake in the Charlie Lau/George Brett school, which teaches solid line-drive hitting. After studying this book, I became a Top 10 hitter in a highly-competitive Texas league. The Art of Hitting .300 is a baseball treasure.

I recommend this book for anyone wants to learn (or teach) advanced hitting techniques. Pictures and descriptions clearly explain common hitting problems and show correct swing mechanics. My 15-year old struggled through his first slump before we applied Lau's hitting fundamentals. He added fifty points to his batting average over the next month and hit 0.638 in a national tournament. I believe this book had a lot to do with his improvement.

I was a scrawny little kid to whom baseball was everything. To my parent's dismay, I judged myself by how I played baseball. But I was scared of the baseball and lost as to how to go about hitting it. My coaches gave me harmful, misguided instructions like, "make sure it's a stike, then swing at it" and "snap those wrists". I was a wreck. Then one winter my Dad (like me, a George Brett/Wade Boggs fan) bought me this book. My Dad had never been able to hit either, but he and I dissected it over the course of a summer.It was a lot of work, more work than any 12-year-old could could have undertaken without the guidance of an equally determined adult. But my Dad and I realized that hitting was a process, a method that could be learned. Lau taught that everything I had been told -with horrible results- was in fact wrong. You don't judge whether a pitch is a strike and then swing; you start your swing and let your reflexes hold you back. You don't swing hard with your arms; you swing easy and get your power from your whole body. All spring we worked on it, practicing in the garage, spending literally hundreds of dollars at batting cages working on mechanics. That very next season, I was hitting the ball better, and I only improved from there. By the end of that season, I was a certified leadoff terror. My team won its league title thanks to a game-winning single by yours truly. I even hit a few home runs (by not trying to, as Lau teaches). I was deliriously happy.Even since then I've been a good hitter. Not a power hitter (I'm much too small), but a solid doubles guy with surprising pop. What I learned from this book kept me in organized baseball through Babe Ruth and high school (simultaneously), college, and semi-professional leagues. I am a hideously slow runner who soon after puberty had to give up dreams of playing professionally, but to this day I can step in front of a pitcher or pitching machine -cold- and drive the ball. This book taught me how. If you really want to hit a baseball, buy it, read it, internalize it, and put your faith in it. It will serve you well.

Any player confused by batting cage myths and theories ought to definetely consider reading this masterpiece. It breaks down the 10 Absolutes to good hitting in an easy-to-understand text,features hitter analyses, and is full of pictures to refer back to. Not only does it deal with the actual mechanics(the Absolutes)but it deals with the mental side of hitting including dreaded but inevitable slumps.This book changed my entire hitting "career" and raised my batting average from .132 in '97 to .418 in '98. I am now a freshman in high school(1999)and the starting left fielder on varsity at 5'6",145 and it's not for my defense.I couldn't dream of this 2 years ago until Lau showed me how to get the most out of my body. This is the best hitting book I have ever read.