The Hitting Edge - Tom Robson

The Hitting Edge

by Tom Robson

NEW, 192 pages

Get other Baseball books here

About The Hitting Edge

Hitting a hard-thrown baseball is one of the most difficult skills in sports. The Hitting Edge simplifies the task by focusing on key features common in every successful hitter’s swing: dynamic balance, sequential rotation, axis of rotation, and bat lag.

Author Tom Robson identified these hitting “absolutes” through extensive video analysis and research and his on-field role as a major league hitting coach. He confirmed the importance of the four factors by studying the best hitters of the modern era, such as Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, and working with top batsmen like Rafael Palmeiro and John Olerud. And a hitter doesn’t need to be an all-star to benefit from Robson’s instruction, because it applies across all levels of competition and allows for all types of individual swing styles.

Robson also recognizes that batters aren’t robots, and human factors sometimes interfere with hitting mechanics. So he also teaches how to develop better focus and a more positive attitude at the plate.

But it takes more than the right stroke to develop consistent contact and power. Focus. Split-second timing. An eye for the perfect pitch. Great hitting requires all these elements and more. Much of The Hitting Edge is dedicated to the physical and mental details of preparing for the pitch, followed by six information-packed chapters on the mechanics of the swing.

Loaded with concise instruction, skill demonstration, photos, effective drills, and more, Robson’s book cleans up where other hitting books strike out. Take the knowledge available in this book with you to every at-bat and you’ll have The Hitting Edge.

About Tom Robson

As a major league hitting coach for 12 years, Tom Robson knows what it takes to become a great hitter. A former Minor League Player of the Year and Pacific Coast MVP, Robson has coached hundreds of big leaguers, including Rafael Palmeiro, John Olerud, and Mike Piazza.

Robson works with Bio-Kinetics, a company that uses computer-generated, three-dimensional motion analysis to help athletes maximize performance through proper biomechanics. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Reviews of this Book

"Even if you have the ability to hit you still need great information and lots of reinforcement to keep getting better. The Hitting Edge gives you that information and inspiration, just as Tom's coaching has helped me become a productive Major League hitter."

Edgardo Alfonzo
San Francisco Giants

"In working with Tom the past 15 years, I've seen him make bad hitters good and good hitters better. This book will give the true essence of hitting to those who want to learn."

Bobby Valentine

About Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball on the professional, amateur, and youth levels is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball.

In North America, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). Each league has three divisions: East, West, and Central. Every year, the major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. Four teams make the playoffs from each league: the three regular season division winners, plus one wild card team. Baseball is the leading team sport in both Japan and Cuba, and the top level of play is similarly split between two leagues: Japan's Central League and Pacific League; Cuba's West League and East League. In the National and Central leagues, the pitcher is required to bat, per the traditional rules. In the American, Pacific, and both Cuban leagues, there is a tenth player, a designated hitter, who bats for the pitcher. Each top-level team has a farm system of one or more minor league teams. These teams allow younger players to develop as they gain on-field experience against opponents with similar levels of skill.

The Hitting Edge