Bunting 101 - easier said than done!

I'm not quite sure why, but I distinctly remember that almost every coach I ever had made us do three things to what I thought at the time was excess.

One was bunting. Man did we practice bunting! Although I was a 3-4-5 power hitter my whole career and seldom got the bunt sign, I sure remember practicing it! I don't mean like teams do now, I mean serious time.

The second thing was pepper. Good Lord, did we play a lot of pepper or what? And a lot of the time it was without gloves and often with the bat upside down using the handle rather than the barrel to hit the ball. Sometimes we'd even have to hit the ball with the knob or top of the bat.

Another one was just throwing up a ball and hitting it. when I worked out with on AA team in particular, their hitting instructor had us doing it with lima beans and broomsticks, and I don't mean one or two swings either. I'm talking serious calluses and blisters!

I also had several coaches who made us take at least on BP turn where we had to try to hit every pitch, no matter where it was. We'd get balls in the dirt, at our heads, over our heads and in the other batter's box, and we were supposed to get the bat on the ball.

The reason I mention that stuff is because even though I wasn't called on to bunt very often and that I haven't played in a game for upwards of 20 years and am arthritic and crippled, I drive my son nuts by just dropping the bat head on the ball or bunting from both sides of the plate.

I can't swing anymore, but I can hit darn near anything he, or any of the kids I'm around now-a-days throws, and I'm convinced that the reason is because I spent so much time doing those strange things.

There is no doubt in my mind that players from my era, that's the Fred and Barney era, spent much more time swinging bats at balls, and throwing and catching balls. Bunting was just considered something you had to be able to do, just like fielding or throwing.

We didn't spend anywhere near the amount of time in conditioning and theory, but it certainly seems like we spent much more time on fundies, one of which was bunting.

One thing I do remember very clearly is, you better be darn sure you had gone to confession before a game if you got the bunt sign and took a strike, because you were surely going to be killed! I can still remember seeing the veins on my HS coaches neck pop out and seeing his ears get beet red if someone made that mistake.