How to Bunt

Series Summary

Baseball is a sport played with a bat and a ball. In baseball, there are two teams of nine players each, and the goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged 90 feet apart at the corners of a diamond. Offensive players take turns hitting, while the defense tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in a number of different ways. A player on offense can stop at any of the bases and try to score on a teammate's hit ball. The teams switch between offense and defense whenever the team on defense records three outs. One turn on offense for each team makes an inning, and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game is the winner. In this free video series, a former minor league baseball player and current scout demonstrates baseball skills while also providing tips on taking care of baseball equipment. Discover how to care for a wooden bat, how to break in a leather baseball glove and how to grip a baseball bat. Get into a batting stance and work the count with these baseball tips!

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Tony Naile and today I want to talk to you a little bit about the technique of bunting. First of all in bunting, you want to get into a proper body position, athletic position with your feet under you. You want to make two moves here, unlike the old days, we used to square around and bunt this way, but we've kind of changed that, learned a little better way of doing this, so we now, we just move our right foot, and slide the hand up, like this. Notice I start out when I turn, I slide my hand up to the part that starts the bat getting bigger, and I want to keep my bat head at the top of my strike zone, right here, right here. Alright, this allows you to just go forward on a bunt or down, you don't go up on a bunt. The worst things that happen when you bunt, is bunting a ball above your head, or out of the strike zone high. Three things normally happen, you miss a ball, you foul the ball, or you pop it up, all three are bad. So, turn the back foot, slide the hand up, get your bat at an angle here, where your bat head is up, notice my arms are out in front of me, not in here. You want to be able to see the bat and the ball at the same time, like this so you've got to have your head behind the bat. Alright, also when I go down for a pitch, notice I'm not doing this, I'm not reaching down for a ball, I'm sliding the hands up, I'm going down with my knees, this way it enables me to keep my eyes behind the bat at all times, and see it. O.k, one of the most important things about bunting, is just like hitting a ball. You only bunts strikes unless you're in a suicide squeeze situation, you only bunt strikes, o.k. This is about it on bunting at this time. At another time we'll get into bunting on how to bunt, and end your bat or liven your bat for a wet ground or a fast field. O.k, thank you!"