Pulling off is one of the most common things said about a young hitter. Coach Bass does not stop at that label. He looks at where the hitter's momentum is going.
Where the momentum needs to go
People will call it pulling off the ball, but this is where the momentum of the body needs to go — right-handed hitter to second baseman and left-handed hitter to shortstop.
Coach Bass evaluates the direction of the hitter's body momentum. For a right-handed hitter, he wants that momentum going toward the second baseman. For a left-handed hitter, he wants it going toward the shortstop. The direction mirrors with the hitter's handedness.
The front shoulder is the tell
To see the momentum, Coach Bass looks at the front shoulder. The front shoulder should be attacking the ball: when the hitter starts the swing, the front shoulder goes toward the ball. Watch whether it attacks the ball or pulls away.
The front shoulder is how Coach Bass evaluates the momentum. It is not a position the hitter is asked to hold: there is no universal shoulder position, angle or measurement in his teaching. What the hitter takes into the box is the correction below.
Handedness comes first. The second baseman or shortstop direction depends on which side the hitter bats from, so Coach Bass settles that before he reads the momentum, and he does not guess when a video cannot show it.
The fix: take the cap off with a line drive
Most people are going to say the hitter is pulling off, but to correct the pulling off, you take your momentum and think about taking the second baseman or shortstop's hat off with a line drive.
- Right-handed hitter: take your momentum toward the second baseman and take his or her cap off with a line drive.
- Left-handed hitter: take your momentum toward the shortstop and take his or her cap off with a line drive.
That is the whole correction, and it is meant to be simple. The fielder's cap is not a description of body movement. It is a thought and an intent for the hitter: a line drive, with the momentum going that way.
Coach Bass keeps that simplicity on purpose. He does not turn the correction into a list of body-position cues for the hitter to think about. One thought, one line drive, the momentum going toward the fielder.
Why the direction matters
Coach Bass's three attack points are the inside front knee for an inside pitch, the belly button for a pitch down the middle and the inside back knee for an outside pitch. The ball is in front of the hitter at all three, and the hitter needs the correct momentum direction to get behind the ball.
The chain Coach Bass teaches runs in one direction: correct momentum direction, get behind the ball, let the ball reach the right attack point, and the hands work through the ball.
Coach Bass ties the same line-drive intent to the approach:
This is why it is so important to think middle and away and think about hitting a line drive as a right-handed hitter and taking the second baseman's hat off.
A drill that trains it
In the Coach Bass Middle-Away Line Drive drill, the ball sits or is tossed at a middle-away location with a middle or opposite-field target, and the hitter drives it through the middle or opposite side with firm line-drive intent, resetting the approach before every repetition.
- Right-handed hitters: take the second baseman's cap off.
- Left-handed hitters mirror the intent through the shortstop side.
- Stay behind the ball.
- Drive through the ball instead of guiding it.
The mistakes it is built to catch include pulling off the ball, reaching for the ball, rolling over and trying to guide the ball softly.
What it looks like when it works
Line drives toward that middle-of-the-field direction instead of pulled-off contact. And remember Coach Bass's principle: the ball will tell you exactly what you are doing.
Ball flight, direction and the contact result are all evidence about what happened during the swing. That is why the Free Hitter Scan asks for one complete game at-bat filmed from the side: Coach Bass reads the momentum from the swing and from what the ball does.