Private Baseball Lessons Near Me Video Interview

Private Baseball Lessons Near Me: “I saw 6000 guys; I didn’t see anybody who could hit a curveball. It’s like, how are we not hitting a curveball?”

If you’re searching for “private baseball lessons near me” in central Pennsylvania, then please reach out to Coach Bill Masullo.

In this private baseball lessons near me video, we interview a good friend of mine Coach Bill Masullo out of Pennsylvania.  His company is of the Ultimate Edge at GoodSports.  In this private baseball lessons near me interview we chat about:

• Give me your sales pitch on you guys’ Academy, what you guys do, where you’re located, etc.
• How long has it been since you started following me Bill?
• Do you guys do different experiments and stuff like that? Do you show those kids a part of your learning process?
• What’s your advice on the biggest mistake you see some of these hitting academies making in the beginning?
• How are you guys applying Perry Husband’s stuff?
• What hitting strategies are you talking about to your guys? And how are you practicing them?
• Why ‘keep hands inside’ the curveball is a myth…
• Bill and Joey on the state of youth baseball and softball: ‘free play’
• Where can people find you Bill?

Very interesting sit down with Coach Bill, to give you a little taste, here’s a quote from him about his research this past summer…

“I saw 450 teams play, and of those 6000 players, 50 are phenomenal, and I didn’t see a bad player. I’m being honest, I didn’t see a bad player. But I saw like 5950 guys, that all looked alike… I saw 6000 guys; I didn’t see anybody who could hit a curveball. It’s like, how are we not hitting a curveball?”

CLICK HERE for the full pdf transcript of the above private baseball lessons near me video, or continue on to read below…

ENJOY!

Joey Myers  00:06

Hello, and welcome to the swing smarter monthly newsletter. This is your host Joey Myers from hittingperformancelab.com and I have the honor to have a guest on, who I’ve been on his stuff quite a bit, Mr. Coach Bill Masullo.

Joey Myers  00:20

Welcome to the show first, Bill.

Bill Masullo  00:22

Oh, thank you, Joey. Thank you for having me here. I love it.

Joey Myers  00:27

One of the big reasons why I want Coach Bill on is Bill runs an academy, a decent size Academy, it’s been around for a while, I’m going to have him go into that just give you the little details, in case you’re in his general area over there in the Pennsylvania’s.

Joey Myers  00:42

I wanted to have Bill on because I wanted to go in, and I know I have some Academy owners that follow me. I know there’s some out there may be just starting or wanting to start their own hitting Academy or baseball softball Academy.

Joey Myers  00:54

I think Bill’s private baseball lessons near me knowledge of this, and his school of hard knocks knowledge will be invaluable in this. So first, I want to start off, Bill, I want you to just give me your sales pitch on you guys’ Academy, what you guys do, where you guys are located, and kind of go from there.

Give me your sales pitch on you guys’ Academy, what you guys do, where you’re located, etc. for those looking for private baseball lessons near me?

Bill Masullo  01:11

Sure, I run a facility. It’s known as Good Sports and we are located in Central Pennsylvania. If you can picture Pennsylvania as a somewhat of a square looking type of state, little rectangular and you stick your finger right in the middle of that, that’s where you would find us and we’re just a little bit north of Penn State University. Most people have heard of that.

Bill Masullo  01:38

I began in a very roundabout way. I’m a little bit of an outsider when it comes to this whole baseball thing. I coached hockey for 25 years-26 years in all honesty. I was too small of a guy to play baseball, so nobody wants a light hitting second baseman.

Bill Masullo  02:05

What I noticed along the way was, I’m very much a contrarian by nature, so I noticed a lot of information that I didn’t think was good information or correct information and then when it was acted upon by the player, the player sort of got a little bit of grief.

Bill Masullo  02:27

I just always sort of thought, hey, I can do that a little bit better with a little bit of a different outcome. We’ve been successful in that regards. Everything we do is either small group, or one on one. I don’t promote travel teams or such. We just train, that is what we do. It’s a little bit different in that regard.

Joey Myers  02:53

I love that. How long has it been since you started following me or any of the other ones that we’ll talk about in this call?

How long has it been since you started following me Bill?

Bill Masullo  03:01

Joey, I’m trying to even figure out how I got there. Well, I’m going to say it’s been at least 10 years. I’m going right back to the very first book that you put out. I think what attracted me to you and I get attracted to these types.

Bill Masullo  03:28

Guys that are out there saying, speaking, what no one else was talking about. You’ve always heard me say, with you, it was always well, let me prove it. Let me go grab some baseballs and let’s set something up formally, and let’s look at it. Let’s see if that’s true or not.

Bill Masullo  03:50

I thought, wow, if a guy is going to get that deep into it, that’s the guy that I want to understand, and you went to movement. I just thought, you know what, that’s a piece of the puzzle that everyone wants to neglect and not knowingly, but it’s just sort of like, Oh, so and that’s it. I know that’s how I got to you. I don’t know when that was.

Joey Myers  04:16

I think that’s interesting and that was when I first did it. When it comes to private baseball lessons near me, I didn’t want to come from a background where I wanted to push my Fresno State background. If you go on my about page I do mention that but I don’t say listen to me because I went to Fresno State, because I know there’s going to be somebody else saying, well, I played for the Blue Jays for 10 years.

Joey Myers  04:38

I trump your four years playing division one college baseball and then for that person, well, I made three All Star game appearances. It’s this shouting match that whoever can shout the loudest whoever got to the top, in that sense, we should be all listening to Bonds and Aaron.

Joey Myers  04:59

Although I do agree with a lot of what they say I think it gets misconstrued, but this idea of going out and prove it. I think what you’re saying is that a lot of the instructors out there, gurus, whatever you want to call them, the guys at the top of the food chain, I guess, and the gals, that it is a dogma, they’ve created a system that is so much of a dogma that they can’t save face and go opposite of what they said.

Joey Myers  05:27

I think early on, when I did the swing experiments, I said, hey, I’m stumbling on this new stuff. Let’s challenge it and let’s do a little swing experiment and say, okay, let’s see what happens if we do this, and then the opposite of this, and then see how the numbers roll out.  And I think people who search “private baseball lessons near me” can appreciate that approach.

Joey Myers  05:43

Like you said, I always tell people find out do it on your own. Don’t take my word for it. I don’t want to be the bottleneck. Go do it on your own. Do you guys do different experiments and stuff like that? Do you show those kids like a part of your learning process?

Do you guys do different experiments and stuff like that? Do you show those kids a part of your learning process when doing private baseball lessons near me?

Bill Masullo  05:57

Absolutely. Obviously, sprinkled with a lot of self-deprecating humor.

Joey Myers  06:04

Yeah. That’s what I like about you.

Bill Masullo  06:08

I don’t ever want to take myself seriously. I jokingly tell my kids this all the time, you certainly don’t want to hit the way I hit. Let’s try to get to the information. I want my kids to experiment quite a bit.

Bill Masullo  06:29

I would say probably the biggest fight I have, is just knocking the kids over the head, a little bit gently, but the idea of logging, doing experiments on our own. We’re always trying to that idea of being comfortable with being uncomfortable. I would say I have learned far more from those kids than they have ever learned from me.

Joey Myers  07:01

I love that, and speaking from an academy owners’ point of view, and I know, like you said, you’re not really into the travel ball teams, it’s more of the development side, which I love.

Joey Myers  07:10

I think that is must be a private baseball lessons near me staple in any kind of hitting Academy, it can’t be just about taking the parents money, not saying they all do this, but taking the parents money just to have a travel team to go out and play and things like that there must be a foundation to that.

Joey Myers  07:24

If I’m paying as a parent $200 a month or $300 a month or 400 or whatever. I mean, I’ve heard some crazy amounts, my kids better be getting something other than just exposure, right? There are a lot of travel teams out there.

Joey Myers  07:38

What would be your advice for other hitting academies, it could be a one just getting off the ground or thinking about getting off the ground? Or maybe one that’s been going for maybe a year or two? What’s your biggest advice for marketing to the private baseball lessons near me crowd?

Joey Myers  07:51

Or how about this? What’s your advice on the biggest mistake you see some of these hitting academies making in the beginning, like top two or one biggest mistake?

What’s your advice on the biggest mistake you see some of these hitting academies making in the beginning?

In the summer, “I saw 450 teams play, and of those 6000 players, 50 are phenomenal, and I didn’t see a bad player. I’m being honest, I didn’t see a bad player. But I saw like 5950 guys, that all looked alike… I saw 6000 guys; I didn’t see anybody could hit a curveball. It’s like, how are we not hitting a curveball?”

Bill Masullo  08:05

At the end of the day, I want to create a relationship with my player. I want them to understand that I’m invested, and with what they want to do, to help them improve.

Bill Masullo  08:23

For me, logging, just everything is a little bit slower. Some days that is, does that mean then that we can just go do a classroom day where we want to discuss a little bit more before we go put it into operation? Yeah, we do that. But I want them to see the breadcrumbs that they’ve laid down as they continue to improve to develop their skill.

Bill Masullo  08:50

For us, I just look and go, we need to understand how to play baseball. What does that mean? To be prepared to do these travel things, that is a huge undertaking. I have done that this summer, I have traveled extensively to watch some high caliber players.

Bill Masullo  09:12

At the end of the day, I am going to say if I saw 450 teams play, and of those 6000 players, 50 are phenomenal, and I didn’t see a bad player. I’m being honest, I didn’t see a bad player. But I saw like 5950 guys, that all looked alike.

Bill Masullo  09:37

I tell my guys every day be uncommon, and I want them to be aggressive, to stay away from passive attitudes. I want them to be aggressive, make mistakes and being earnest, learn from them. That’s why I’m there to help guide them to say hey, it’s okay that we fell here today. Just keep at it.

Joey Myers  09:57

I love that, especially if 2020 has taught us anything, almost the biggest skills that we can instill in our baseball and softball players are two things. They both start with the same letter. I know you love this; you appreciate that is courage and critical thinking.

Joey Myers  10:14

It sounds like that’s what you’re saying courage and critical thinking.

Bill Masullo  10:19

Yes, every day, because one of my weaknesses, I don’t know how to think well, and I’m being honest. I see it but then because I am aware of that weakness, that’s why I seek guys like you out.

Bill Masullo  10:39

Okay, you got to do the lifting, because I’m not smart enough to understand that. But it’s funny when that begins to happen, because then I get like lightbulb moments on a regular basis. Okay, now I get it. Then the movement begins, and something else happens, and it’s right.

Bill Masullo  11:00

Right now, I took for granted that we’re discussing, as we get into the fall here. Again, I saw 6000 guys, I didn’t see anybody could hit a curveball. It’s like, how are we not hitting a curveball?

Bill Masullo  11:21

I took for granted that they did the things that I did. When we’re talking visual, visual data, just actual visual data collections, I find out that they’re into narrow a box, they have no idea of how the balls moving in space and time, the control of the space in front of them.

Bill Masullo  11:46

Now I must step back and that’s what we are doing right now, planning on in the next couple of weeks to undergo that as a major educational component, and that will be your visual planning.

Joey Myers  12:05

We have a very co-friend in Perry Husband, and you talk about seeking people out smarter than you. Talk a little bit about that, a lot of what you’re talking about is in that Perry sphere, right? How are you guys applying that when it comes to private baseball lessons near me?

How are you guys applying Perry Husband’s stuff?

Bill Masullo  12:22

I want to talk about like visual planning, I will say this and I’m pretty sure I got this from Perry and so Perry is effective velocity HittingIsAGuess.com for those of you, look him up.

Joey Myers  12:34

Dot com

Bill Masullo  12:35

Yep. He has some theories, I believe very valid theories, tested theories. It’s the hallmark of how I instruct, but when I began to use what I would call right now, I use the phrase “right now” his heart, whatever, it’s a pneumonic that Perry uses when stating, do only one thing, understand location, understand shape, understand the velocity of the pitch.

Bill Masullo  13:14

Now what I’m seeing is, when this gets combined with the idea of the visual, what is the shape that I’m looking for, you know, how should that look? What is it actually? Now it’s almost instantly guys are coming back with information.

Bill Masullo  13:32

I’ve had kids that have never given me one good sentence of good feedback. Now they go a little bit wider, and they’re saying, oh, well, I can see where that fastball is coming all the time. Plus, you tip off your curveball. I say tip off my curveball. They said yeah, you lean forward on your curve.

Bill Masullo  13:55

These are kids that are good hitters but have always had that trouble. That’s the thing that I’ve seen, and I deal a lot with 18-17-16, all the way down to 10-year-olds, that’s the bulk of who we’re working and yet they know curveballs come in, and yet, they still can’t hit it.

Bill Masullo  14:16

That’s what I saw a lot of and such, so now when I take those components, there’s visual components with their background that they have and what EV is, suddenly that’s like the brick and mortar.

Bill Masullo  14:31

There are no cracks right now, and I know that there are, I just don’t know what they are yet. Now we go back and now we test again, a la Joey Myers, a la hitting performance lab.

Joey Myers  14:44

That’s super interesting. It seems like every year there’s some sort of you talk about the aha moment and in our system, and it used to be in the mechanic side of things. There’s this aha moment and we start working on it with some new stuff and doing that swing experimentation.  The private baseball lessons near me crowd will love this!

Joey Myers  15:00

We finally evolve it to a point where it’s like this is solid. It’s consistent with the success my hitters are getting. This last year, it was almost like it wasn’t the physical, mechanical aha moment, we call them hitting strategies.

Joey Myers  15:16

We have six of them, and what it is, is I teach my hitters that there’s three dimensions to hitting, there’s the vertical component, so the pitch can go up or down in the zone, there’s the horizontal component, which is the depth of the pitch, right inside, middle, and away.

Joey Myers  15:31

There’s the Perry Husband EV dimension, which is the timing or the speed of the pitcher, the shape like you’re talking about, and people out there don’t know what the shape, what Bill’s talking about is the shape of the pitch, the shape the pitch is taking, or we could argue the shape that it’s coming out of the hand, or where the arm slot is, and all that kind of stuff.

Joey Myers  15:51

There’s two out of I think we have about six, I just added a two-strike approach. It has nothing to do with physical adjustments, like we’re not choking up, we’re not going wide with our feet. The whole other things that coaches teach and I’ve taught to, but I don’t really do that.

Joey Myers  16:08

We always say that if you’re going to use a two-strike swing, if you’re going to make those physical adjustments that you must practice out in the cage, you can’t just practice your normal swing, and then in the game, oh two strike adjustment and then go straight to that because you’re not practicing it.

Joey Myers  16:20

The top two that we use that do strike is what we just added recently. But the first one is adjusting verticals, we call them verticals, not launch angles, because you know, coaches love that word launch angle, some of them, say, adjusting to like what Perry says hit it back, we call it hitting back through the two, but he says hitting it back through that little donut that he has that marker at 10 to 15 degrees.

Joey Myers  16:44

You’re making your adjustments above and below. If he had a ground ball, trying to hit a fly ball next time, if he had a fly ball trying to hit a ground ball next time, trying to get it to go right back through, right, so that’s number one.

Joey Myers  16:54

Number two is our middle away, middle up, or middle away, middle in, middle down approach where we’re adjusting our barrel path to middle away, middle down, which is very similar, but it’s different than middle and middle up.

Joey Myers  17:08

Those two alone, I tell my hitters, I said, I was a .250 career hitter in college. Those two alone have nothing to do with mechanics. But those two alone, those two hitting strategies, I would have hit 100 points higher, for sure, in my career, I would hit .350 at Fresno State.  This helps to win over the private baseball lessons near me crowd.

Joey Myers  17:26

You’re talking about these hitting strategies? What are some things you guys do to practice that?

What hitting strategies are you talking about to your guys?  And how are you practicing them?

Bill Masullo  17:32

Number one, I look at younger kids a little bit different than I look at my 12-year-olds a little bit older, so there’s a different way that we would approach them. First thing I want them to do is just be able to hit it hard and hit it far.

Bill Masullo  17:52

I really don’t get locked into a whole lot of mechanical work. There’s always time towards that. The very first thing that we’ll do is we’ll set targets so that we can get feedback. It’s the one thing in baseball that I think is lacking, is the understanding of how I obtain feedback.

Bill Masullo  18:24

Every kid that has a bucket, coach has a bucket everywhere and the coach goes crazy at some point when everybody’s shooting basketball. One day I was watching that, and it sort of struck me as like, and yet here they are playing this random game, with their buddy as they’re trying to put balls back in the bucket, it was like, that’s the feedback that I want you to understand.

Bill Masullo  18:50

Now we have very distinct targets. So that if I were to ask them, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to hit? If you’re going to hit that target with the ball off the barrel of your bat? What does it look like?

Bill Masullo  19:05

Again, this goes back to Perry and I would say the use of imagination. Understanding what type of swing gives you that, it’s amazing what the brain will do, and it just brings them to that.

Bill Masullo  19:17

We’re always getting feedback based on what their intended goal was. When it’s used over and over, it’s easy to see when they’re using their pneumonic, when they’re using hit hard or right now, and when they’re not.

Bill Masullo  19:39

To me, the fallacy is the foul ball that’s straight back, and everybody says, oh, you’re right on it, and that is the furthest thing from the truth, and we’ll measure that out for that ball to go directly back.

Bill Masullo  19:54

That means I’m like probably on my back hip and maybe a little underneath it. I’m thinking that my hands were on hands show. I’m like, a foot 18 inches out in front of me.

Bill Masullo  20:08

Well, when I do that, and I show them that, and I just marked that with baseball, it’s anywhere from 33 to 36 inches off. That is a bundle of distance in speed. They’re not close.

Bill Masullo  20:23

What I need for them to understand is some of the stuff they’ve heard all along isn’t true. For baseball players, they want to make small incremental adjustments.

Bill Masullo  20:35

I always tell them when I was telling the story, when I was younger, my dad would come home from work, and I would beat him home 10 minutes from school, and I always had my eight-track cassette player on, so I don’t want to date myself.

Joey Myers  20:53

I had one, too.

Bill Masullo  20:55

I have it at eight, my dad would come back to the bedroom. He’d say, hey, can you turn that down? I take it to seven, and he’d come back about 10 minutes later and turn it down before and say I thought I asked you to turn that down?

Bill Masullo  21:08

I said, well, I did well, not enough. That’s what I think. Getting the kids to understand how big are the adjustments? We talked about this, you and I and Perry we talked about this, like when that barrel enters to when that barrel exits, it’s typically six miles an hour of velocity, that the barrel stays in the strike zone, and before it enters and out.

Bill Masullo  21:32

If that pitcher can beat that, plus or minus faster or slower from pitch to pitch 5-6-7 mile an hour, we’re going to struggle all day long at the plate. That’s what I think overall, that’s number one, especially with my older guys that I try to get them to understand.

Bill Masullo  21:50

Then and only then, because when I become efficient, if I change one thing, I change everything. Now the efficiency starts to work for me. That’s probably number one for us, it’s just getting on time.

Bill Masullo  21:55

What I would tell a beginning instructor or only a year in, get your kids a quick win. The biggest way I can tell you is off the fingertips, right? As they’re hitting it now, hit hard, hit now, whatever two positive strong words that they are to a target.

Joey Myers  22:33

When you say right now, for those that don’t know Perry stuff, what Bill saying is, like you said out of their fingertips, the hitter set starts to swing right and then now is that contact.

Joey Myers  22:44

They’re visual, or they’re mouthing, saying that word right now. They’ll set a measurement of that third dimension of the pitch.

Bill Masullo  22:56

Yes, and I want my guys to dance a lot. They joke about it, we laugh about it, yet at the end of the day, there’s rhythm, there’s tempo that occurs, and it’s part of what I want them to take in.

Bill Masullo  23:12

I think maybe currently, I think that’s been lost to a degree, not because it was intended, or it’s stupid idea or whatever. It’s just that I think the lack of free play is no longer there, where kids would get together for five-six hours every day, with no adults around and then being allowed to experiment and to try different things.

Bill Masullo  23:40

None of that happens, or at least it doesn’t happen to the degree it used to for a lot of societal reasons. I think, a little bit of what happens, everything’s organized and a lot of instruction is just maybe ill-advised words.

Joey Myers  23:59

Mechanized, internal, too machine-like.  This can sometimes turn off the private baseball lessons near me searching crowd.

Bill Masullo  24:05

When the concept of hitting a curve, I’ll go back to that concept of hitting a curve is look for the rotation. Well, I think, though, all those answers were Oh, you know, I sort of noticed that, oh, yeah, let’s look for rotation.

Bill Masullo  24:24

Now we’re so focused in tight on trying to see what the ball is, we have no context of where the ball is in space and time. A whole bunch of things go on there but that’s just an idea of it for me.

Why ‘keep hands inside’ the curveball is a myth…

Joey Myers  24:38

You said that’s one of the cues that I remember getting thrown around for the curveball, hitting it and then the other thing was staying inside it and keep your hands inside the curveball and there were just things that once it dawned on me that there is a different barrel path middle in versus middle away.

Joey Myers  24:44

It dawned on me that staying inside it wasn’t very effective at the curveball that was coming say righty- righty that was coming out of the hitter and then breaking into the middle of the plate.

Joey Myers  25:03

Like if you stood in set that stayed inside that thing, if you hit it, it’s not going to be hit very hard. If you watch the trout and the guys that just smash these things, you’ll see that barrel instead of dumping in the zone early, you’ll see it carry high a little bit longer and we’ll dump in later.

Joey Myers  25:19

What they’re doing and Bonds was probably one of the best at this, many out there. Remember watching Bonds hitting bombs into the bay, at fastballs that were up almost seemed like it was going to hit his elbow guard, or his arm guard, big old giant, bionic thing he had on, and he was able to get to it at 95 up and in.

Joey Myers  25:38

Same thing with the curveballs, lefty curveballs coming at him, and he just spun right on him. It’s not so much the rotation of Bonds’ body as more of where his barrel path was to that curveball.

Joey Myers  25:50

Like you said, that’s one of our strategies too, that’s the third strategy we have, we have the adjusting verticals, adjusting horizontals, and then curveballs. We hunt specific curveballs and zones and like you said, the younger the player, a little different approach.

Joey Myers  26:04

You don’t want to get too detailed, and those pitchers aren’t as good with their command and things like that. But when they get into 12-year-old, that sixth grade year, those pitchers start getting pretty good. They have a pretty good handle of that 46-foot distance there, or 50 feet, whatever pony leaves and stuff like that.

Joey Myers  26:21

They start to get a little bit more command until that mound backs up a little bit, then you see like about a year or two where they struggle, but that curveball approach, I completely agree with you, because what’s funny is I have one of my hitters right now who it’s going to be so unfair because he’s got one more year at Little League.

Joey Myers  26:37

He’s somewhat of a big kid. He’s a taller kid, but he’s come a long way in a year, he’s worked his butt off. Now we got his mechanics, took about six to eight months during this 2020 year, got his mechanics to a good spot to where everything’s effective.

Joey Myers  26:55

We’re still working on stuff from time to time, but we really got to focus on the strategies.

Joey Myers  27:00

Ideally, in Little League what happens is pitchers will try and get you out with the fastball, and they might move in and out. Most of the time, it’s away and down and stuff like that. But the faster pitchers will come in, and if you can’t hit it, they keep throwing it.

Joey Myers  27:12

This hitter smashes it, and because we’ve equipped them with the curveball approach, the next logical step for these pitchers is to go curveball, right? Because they’re used to, like you said, 6000 players, 400-500 teams, you’re watching, and you’re seeing a struggle with the curveball, because all they got to do is throw it, it doesn’t matter where the curveball is at in the league.

Joey Myers  27:33

It’s effective because hitters that have never seen it before or they don’t have a good approach like you’re talking about, they swing and miss, swing, and miss.

Joey Myers  27:39

Well, what happens when that pitcher sees a hitter who has a curveball approach? Then you start smashing the curveball. It’s like, the coaches, the players, they don’t know what to do.

Bill Masullo  27:50

Yeah, it’s called intentional.

Joey Myers  27:56

They start throwing around the zone hoping he’s going to go outside the zone.

Bill Masullo  28:00

Yes, absolutely. That’s what I think that’s the aspect that’s been lost a little bit with the lack of free play. To reintroduce some of these concepts, and am I the guy for that? Not to demonstrate it.

Joey Myers  28:21

Unless you’re hitting a hockey puck.

Bill Masullo  28:22

Yes, that’s right.

Bill Masullo  28:26

Even then, I’m not the guy to demonstrate. But that’s just as important too, Joey, is that it’s modeled correctly. I just remember playing as a kid and you took your favorite team, and you knew how every kid on that team hit.

Bill Masullo  28:47

You hit left hand and you hit right hand and you look like Willie Stargell on this one and it was Roberto on that one, and Dave Cash on this one, and yet, it’s almost Oh, the Ripken boy.

Bill Masullo  29:04

I’m thinking Cal, thinking Edgar Martinez, they might have had 15 or 20 different stances in a year and yet, we’re telling guys, you know, oh, you can’t ever change. And it’s like, yeah, you need to change so there’s an evolving that has to happen.

Bill Masullo  29:27

When you begin to, and when you begin to know what the pitcher is going to do before he does, and it’s still not easy to hit, but boy, it becomes a little easier. That’s when you have guys that people are looking at going wow, that guy knows what he’s doing.

Joey Myers  29:45

We say hitting isn’t easy, but we can make it easier.

Bill Masullo  29:49

Yes, that’s true.

Bill and Joey on the state of youth baseball and softball: ‘free play’

Joey Myers  29:52

Before I let you go here because I’m respectful of your time. You say the free play and it’s funny you say that because we went a little independent with my son’s baseball team this year, we went away from the league because I felt they didn’t handle the whole 2020 thing very well.

Joey Myers  30:07

I took our team, we had about eight or nine that decided to stay with us. We added about four or five, so we had about 14-15 hitters.

Joey Myers  30:16

What we did when the season was done, and we got a few games, we played ourselves more than we played a little bit more sandlot than anything. But I told the parents it’s probably what was going to happen, just because you had teams still in leagues, and it was going to be hard to put games together and all that kind of stuff.

Joey Myers  30:30

To tell the truth, we weren’t ready for tournament play. We had some guys that are, they were rough around the edges, but what we elected to do is even when the season was done, we just ramped down how many practices we had during the week, we went from three, down to two and then down to one during the summer.

Joey Myers  30:45

What I did during the summer, was we switched our practices to the morning, so it was cooler because it gets super-hot here.

Joey Myers  30:51

What we did was we did some street wiffleball we just introduced, and we played games like we had, the other team would be fielding and we’d have to throw to the base like normal baseball, so we get to learn some rules there that we couldn’t accomplish in a smaller area, right, because we’re just playing between two gutters.

Joey Myers  31:08

On the other side, and then we got the plate on the sidewalk, and then we got our little painted bases out, orange bases out and stuff. We did some two-strike innings, we would do a normal inning where they had their 0-0.

Joey Myers  31:08

We had an 0-2 inning where they had to swing because I think they were getting a little bit too passive. We did two strike and then at the end, the last that we were supposed to have on this week, but I cancelled it because our school start next week.

Joey Myers  31:37

We started to Home Run Derby the last probably three or four weeks. We just had them out. We carved them into two teams, we set up our thing, just things that you and I did as kids growing up just in the streets playing ball, that free play.  A great play for those private baseball lessons near me folks.

Bill Masullo  31:51

It’s so important because they’re good. For me, they’re getting so much feedback that’s not coming from an authoritative figurehead or however they’re perceiving it.

Bill Masullo  32:09

Joey, I’ll throw this out there as well. Typically, most of the issues that I really see with my kids, and the not through and through, but I’d say overwhelming majority come from kids who are trying to perform for their parents, they come from kids who they are trying their love for them into their success at the plate.

Joey Myers  32:40

That breaks my heart.

Bill Masullo  32:46

Sometimes that becomes a process where we’re just a lot of times, I’ll have to rip kids all the way back down the ground, we’ll go backwards before we go forward. Once we go forward, and they’ve got a good feeling and a good understanding, and they’re playing the game, because it’s their game in my game. They’re far better off for it.

Joey Myers  33:07

I love that. That’s great private baseball lessons near me advice. That’s great for coaches, instructors, Academy owners to look out for, and especially Academy owners, because they have so many kids in their system. That’s the thing, right?

Joey Myers  33:17

Coaches generally have a team or two that they’re coaching. They’re depending on what level they’re at. It could be 15 kids, could be 30 kids, right? But you got the academy owners that can have hundreds of kids.

Joey Myers  33:28

They’re in a position where they can affect a lot of kids and parents searching “private baseball lessons near me”, it’s good for them to know that. Thank you for sharing that. All right, Bill, where can people find you? If they want to get more information? Where can they find you?

Where can people find you Bill?

Bill Masullo  33:41

Oh, I would just say go over to the Facebook. If you have it, if you believe in it. It’s TUE good sports. I don’t know anything about the websites or anything like that. I don’t do that. But if you get over there to it stands for the ultimate edge, it’s TUE good sports.

Bill Masullo  34:00

There’s also better ballplayer. That’s where we typically do some of our virtual stuff.

Joey Myers  34:10

Any kind of private baseball lessons near me new things on the horizon for you that you’re putting together any kind of virtual summits?

Bill Masullo  34:16

I have one coming up here at the end of August, and it’s on crushing the curve. So that’s a good topic on the top of my head there.

Bill Masullo  34:28

That is foremost on what we’re doing. We’re prepping for the fall here as we get into it. That’s the biggest item on the list.

Joey Myers  34:40

Very cool. All right, Bill. Well, thanks for your time here today for all the private baseball lessons near me crowd, and we’ll have to do a take two at some point.

Bill Masullo  34:46

Absolutely. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Hope I didn’t put too many people to sleep. God bless you. Thank you.

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Joey Myers

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Welcome to HittingPerformanceLab.com, where passion meets expertise. As the founder and author, I've crafted over 400 captivating blog posts and authored the Amazon bestselling book "Catapult Loading System," guiding small hitters to drive the ball consistently over 300 feet.

With 28,000+ online bat speed program sales, my methods have transformed coaches, instructors, and parents just like you. I'm affiliated with esteemed organizations like ABCA, IYCA, and SABR, advocating for positive coaching. With 15+ years in corrective fitness and a Division One baseball background, my knowledge is unmatched.

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