When hitters slump, coaches take the rap: batting instructors are often blamed for the poor performances by the players and clubs they "tutor" - Professional Scapegoats

Baseball Digest, March, 2002 by Jerome Holtzman

IF SOMEONE WAS TO ASK WHAT WAS new in baseball this year I would say it was the wholesale dismissal of major league batting coaches. `When the clubs assemble for spring training, believe it or not, half of them will open with a new hitting instructor.

So what's going on?

"They're taking the fall," said Chuck Tanner, who managed four big league clubs. "You can always pass the buck and blame the hitting coach."

Said Whitey Lockman, who has touched all the bases and is approaching his 60th season in the grand old game:

"Only God can make a great hitter!"

If so, what is the value of a batting coach?

I asked Al Lopez, the Hall of Fame manager now retired after 40 years in the big leagues, if he knew of a batting coach who improved any hitters?

Lopez laughed.

I asked again.

"No, I can't think of any," he replied. Batting coaches are a comparatively recent phenomena. Lopez, combined, managed the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox for 17 years. His '54 Indians and '59 White Sox won the American League pennant. If not for his dugout wizardy, the Yankees probably would have won 11 consecutive pennants.

"Today, they have coaches for everything," Lopez said. "When I was managing, we never had a batting coach."

Lopez corrected himself.

One year, in Cleveland, Bill Veeck had two batting coaches in spring training. This was when the Indians trained in Tucson. Rogers Hornsby had the right-handed hitters; Tris Speaker, the left-handers. They were there for the full six weeks.

What did they do?

Again Lopez laughed.

"If someone swung at a bad ball, they'd say `You're swinging at a bad ball.' That was the extent of their instruction."

Eddie Robinson, one of the big sluggers in the 1940S and 1950s, and since then a long-time scout, believes Bill Dickey, the Yankees' Hall of Fame catcher, was the first designated batting coach. It was an extra assignment. Dickey also coached first base. This was in the mid-1950s when Robinson was with the Yankees.

Did Dickey help him?

"No."

Did he help anyone else?

"Not that I know of."

If batting coaches don't help, or hurt anybody, why are they suddenly being fired?

"Maybe it's because some of the players complain to the manager or the general manager," Robinson reported. "They say, `This guy isn't helping me.' Maybe they can't be helped. Hitters are born with natural ability."

Moose Skowron also remembers Dickey.

"He didn't do anything for us," recalled the Moose who in his first 10 seasons played in eight World Series. "Ail Dickey ever said was, `Stay back and wait for the ball. Don't lunge.'"

Joe DiMaggio, the great Yankee Clipper, coached the Yankee hitters during the spring at their St. Petersburg, Florida training camp.

"We never saw him," Skowron said. "He was always with Marilyn in the batting cage under the left field stands."

Was he teaching Marilyn how to hit?

"I don't know," Skowron replied. "We never saw him."

Wally Moses, a dedicated baseball lifer, also had a stretch tutoring the Yankee hitters.

"He gave me some good advice," Skowron said. "He told me to pick up my left heel and then stride."

The right-handed hitting Skowron, who had exceptional power to the opposite field, said manager Casey Stengel helped him the most.

"He said with runners at first, or first and second, if I didn't hit to right field he was going to send me back to the minors."

Whitey Lockman insists the basic problem is that too many hitters are overswinging and trying to hit the ball out of the park. "I suppose you can't blame them. Hit home runs and you get a multi-year million-dollar contract. That's where the money is."

Ted Williams, the best left-handed hitter since Babe Ruth, was mentioned.

"Ted tried to impart his knowledge," Lockman said. "He wrote books. He spent a thousand hours instructing hitters. But who could hit like Ted Williams or Stan Musial? You can get all the help you can but you can't get it done. Most players, 99 percent of them, aren't that good,"

It was Lockman's turn to ask a question.

"Ichiro (Suzuki) led the American League in hitting. Who helped him? Nobody. He helped himself because he's a natural hitter. Do you suppose the Seattle batting coach screwed around with him? I hope not."

Lockman mentioned Charlie Lau and Walt Hriniak, two of the better known recent batting coaches.

"What kind of hitters were they? Yet, a lot of people said they made great hitters out of poor hitters. I never believed it. The best batting coaches are the ones who have the best hitters."

Chuck Tanner agreed,

"If a guy is a .250 hitter, he's going to hit .250. It's as simple as that."

Tanner and his coaches helped Tim Foli, a weak-hitting shortstop, develop into an excellent second-place hitter. Foli played for Tanner almost three full seasons and in 1979 was a major factor when the Pirates won the National League flag.

But their advice was more mental than mechanical.

"He was a great bunter," Tanner said "and so we kept telling him to choke up on the bat and just make contact. All we wanted him to do was move the runners over. And he had his best year, hit 50 points above his career average.