Learning the Baseball Strike Zone

Video Transcript

"Now what we're going to talk about is knowing the strike zone. Now whether you're in little league, you play in high school, you play in college, you know you play in the pros, they have their own little nuances, small little variables, but essentially the strike zone is this. It's from just under his peck here, to just above his knees right here. Now obviously you know in the prows maybe they lower it a little bit, maybe they raise it up a little bit, it's a little more open for little league things like that. But again, the essential zone is from here right below his pecks to about his knees. So, if you think about it, you only have to look at pitches this high. This is why keeping your eyes on the ball is such an important thing. If a ball is way up here at his head, he doesn't want to swing at it, if he doesn't have his eyes on the ball, doesn't know where it's at. Always got to have your eyes on the ball, that way you know the zone, it's a big part of knowing the zone. Also the second part of knowing the zone, the zone is from this side of the plate to this side of the plate and a typical home plate there's a little bit of black on the outside, it's normally the black. Now obviously umpires vary, you know it's totally subjective; they don't have a machine that says that was a strike that was a ball. So some umpires may give you this much room on the plate, this much room on the inside, this much room on the outside, it all depends. But one thing to remember is while he's just standing here, you know, getting ready things like that, that's not where a strike zone is. His strike zone is actually after you go through your swing, it's kind of, and the area that is your strike is from below here to your knees while you're swinging. So if you have a guy that stands straight up, it will be the same as when he's getting ready. But if you have a guy that drops down a little bit, then it's obviously going to shrink up his zone a little bit. That is knowing the strike zone, just knowing exactly where you can hit the ball to give yourself the most effective use of your time."