Cool story:

I signed my son up for an 8 week camp at my buddies academy back in January of this year, 

because even though I played in the minors and run Baseball Notes...

My boy listens better to others, haha.

Most parents dropped their kids off, but my son was a couple of years younger than all of the campers (8 at the time)...

and didn't know anybody,

...so he wanted me to stick around.

(Plus....I really liked to watch :)

So like any of us parents, any time it was my son's turn to hit, do agilities, etc...

...I watched every move.

Like a hawk.

And so we're about 6 weeks in, and midway through the workout I notice a high school kid walk in.

Skinny.  No hat.  Shorts on.

Probably 5'10", 140 lbs.

Nothing remarkable.  Totally regular dude.

So a little while later I'm back to watching my son goof off workout as usual, out of the corner of my eye I see this kid taking soft toss.

Left-handed hitter...

And this kid...

RAKED.

I mean, I seriously couldn't take my eyes off of him.

And it wasn't so much that he was killing the ball...

(which he most certainly was)

...but what struck me was how CLEAN his swing looked.

It's the word that kept coming up time and time again in my mind when I tried to put my finger on what I was looking at.

Clean

So I look at the hitting coach he's working with, and this guy has a gray goatee and is sporting a beanie...

...and wore batting gloves the whole time.

I'm like, "Who is this dude?"

So anyway, after the kid was done getting loose, he switched to a short bat.

Then he proceeded to go through a sequence that I had never seen before:

Short bat, long bat

One hand, two hands

Check swings, full swings.

So I'm like, "Hmm... what are they doing?"

I'll be honest, when I see people doing or talking about new things, my knee-jerk reaction is to be a skeptic.

But seeing how money this kid's swing was....

I just became so curious about it.  

I mean, I played in HS, JC, two D1's and Pro...

and hadn't encountered many of these drills they were using.

Right about then my son's session was over for the night and tells me something about him being hungry and asks if I saw him win the bear crawl race...

(Uhh...yeah son!  Totally saw that.  Good work!  :)

So we leave.

The next day comes, and that lesson was still on my mind.

I couldn't shake it.

So I call my buddy Brian, who runs the academy.

"Hey man, you know that left handed kid that was getting a lesson last night - high school age, no hat on?"

"Yeah I know who you're talking about.  David."

And I'm like, "I've gotta ask, is that kid....good?"

He seemed confused by the question.  

So I'm like, "I'm so used to watching the little guys that maybe this is just what decent high school hitters look like, but last night I couldn't stop watching him.  So... is he good?"

He laughed, and he said "I gotcha, yeah he's a good player.  He's a freshmen and he'll be an early commit next year to a D1 program.  He's good.

So after briefly talking about how crazy it is that plays can/must commit so early, we hung up.

And a minute later I was like, "I should have asked about the coach".

You see, at the time, I was putting together the Youth Baseball Summit, which was a series of interviews of some of the brightest minds in the game.

(We had Steve Springer, Alan Jaeger, Nate Trosky, the Phillies mental skills coach...awesome teachers)

And I thought about finding out more about this local hitting dude to have him share with our YBS audience - because I was just so impressed with what I had watched.

But surely, some local hitting guy didn't have the secret to *creating* a swing that clean, quick and pretty.

"That kid probably has always swung like that" I thought to myself.

So I let it go.

Well, fast forward a few months.

The Summit was a success and my Bulletproof Hitter program (confidence training) was really taking off,  and I was interviewing a bunch of cool, high level baseball people and a friend of mine told me:

"You should interview Mike Brumley.  He's the hitting coordinator for the Braves.  He lives around here."

And I'm like, "Mike Brumley?  The former big leaguer?"

"Yep that's him.  He coached with the Mariners for a long time.  Cubs & Rangers too.  He'll be back in town next week...we should all get together."

I'm like, "Awesome!  Count me in."

So we meet up at my friend's business and who walks in????

Mr. Beanie Cap and Batting Gloves himself!

So our conversation goes like this:

Me:  I've actually seen you before.  I saw you give a kid named David a lesson. I was fascinated.

Mike: Oh yeah?  Yes, David's come a long way.  We've got him at a good point right now.

Me: No doubt!  I couldn't stop watching him.  I noticed that you kept using different sized bats, did a bunch of bare hand drills and such....what were you guys working on?

[Pay attention right here, this is big]

Mike: "I've been in the game a long time [over 30 years at the professional level] and I've found it hard to "explain" adjustments to a player.  You can't "explain" what a good swing should *feel* like.  But over time I've tried every hundreds of different methods and the ones I use now are the best at making a player *feel* the right adjustment.

​

(Now I'm REALLY interested.)

Me: This sounds amazing.  Have you ever thought about sharing your teaching with a bigger audience?  Online is full of so much junk, people are begging for someone credible like you.

Mike: You know, funny you ask.  I hate the idea of coming off like some guru - I'm no guru -  but for a while now I've felt a strong pull on my heart to do more to help younger hitters.  

I've probably worked with over 1,000  local players youth/HS players while on the Major League trail, and it's always the same problems I'm trying to fix.

What most of these kids are being taught isn't great.  Most coaches don't know how to help players, they're just throwing darts at the buzzword dartboard:

Keep your hands inside the ball!

Don't drop your back shoulder.

Drive the  hips!

And it's too bad.  These are good kids who want to put in the work and want to achieve something.

I see it all the time, kids who are having success but are "hand-hooking" everything....it's only a matter of time before that stops working for them.

99% of players today will never handle good pitching with how they're swinging now.

And I've found that what I teach now, the things I've learned and borrowed from so many good coaches before me...

Makes a hitter better.  More contact.  Harder Contact.  It's as simple as that."

[Note: Mike doesn't love me sharing this.  He's an awesome, humble dude and doesn't want to come off like Mr Know-It-All.  But the fact is, is that he helps hitters get better and it's not fair to anybody to understate that.  Sorry Mike :) ]

​

So now, I'm fired up.

I'm like, "Dude, people NEED to hear what you're teaching...

"Let me help you do this.  

"Why don't you come out and work with my son's team for a couple of hours, I'll watch how you work, and we can see how to best present this so players can put this into practice at home."

And he agreed!

...and it was off the charts!

The drills were so good.

​

Because with my players, all of them can really hit the ball hard to one area of the field.

​

But not so much anywhere else.

​

Like, a few kids can hit hard oppo, but never pull.

​

Others can really smash to the pull side...but that's it.

​

Or they can handle pitches in one certain area, but really not others.

And it is frustrating to watch them be less than what they're capable of.

And I hear it all the time from parents - their kid used to hit SO WELL, but the results just aren't there anymore.

Something needs to change.

And after one simple workout with  Mike...

....kids were barreling up pitches that they couldn't handle just minutes before.

They weren't perfect, but wow -

...they sure plugged a few swing holes in a hurry.

And THE BEST part of Mike's sequence of drills was that we really didn't need a pro instructor there to give them feedback on what they were doing wrong....

(though that didn't hurt, haha!)

...rather THE DRILLS provide the feedback.

There are several props that forced the boys into the right positions.

And when they were off, they could FEEL it as the prop let them know.

Genius.

So afterward we have this conversation:

Me:  I noticed you really working with the boys' hand position....having space in there.  I haven't heard that taught much.

Mike: Yep, if you're gonna want to hit a variety of locations and speeds your hands have to be free.

Me:  Fascinating.  Well, let's do this again and film it all.   Then we can share it with parents and hitters who are really eager to get better.

Mike: That sounds great, but I'm leaving for Instructional Fall League in a couple of days.  We could do it out there if you want.

Me: Absolutely!  I could watch you work with your pro guys for a couple of days, then film the sequence afterward.  It'll be perfect.

Mike: Let's do it!

So about a week later, I'm at the Braves' off-season home in Florida...

So for two days I watched him work with his group of Instructional League players 

(which basically includes all of their top young talent in their farm system)

and this absolutely shocked me......

The drills that Mike used with so much success with my little 9u guys...

...were the EXACT same drills he used with his future major leaguers!

And one of the most surprising things I noticed when I was watching these high draft picks workout...

...was that so many were having to "unlearn" what they'd been taught in HS and college.

Because what we typically teach our youth hitters to do...

is NOT what is being taught and used with success at the professional level.

And Mike's superpower (my word, not his!) is getting hitters to use the big league movements.

And I've seen this program work for youth hitters, high school,  and Major Leaguers...

...and I've even been through it myself!

When we were all set to film Mike's 8 Drill Sequence, the "plan" was for him to do the demonstrating.

But Mike like's to use soft toss for many of his drills, and if he were to demonstrate he'd need to use the tee.

(Which is fine, but not his favorite)

So he's like, "What about you, can you do it?"

And I hadn't hit in like 10+ years since my minor league days ended, but was like:

Sure!  Let's do this!

And as you can see from the video above, Mike put me through all of the drills.

And I'm so glad he did.

I was a big fan of his method already, but FEELING it myself just took it to another level.

My swing felt so clean and quick.

I got PLENTY of feedback from the drills/props when I would get out of position...

And by the time it was all done, I was feeling so good (minus the hand blisters) that I was about to see about getting a tryout for 2019, lol.

But the point I want you to understand is this:

This training is legit.

It's as good as anything I've seen, and I feel fired up and privileged to be able to share it with you.

The alternatives out there that I've seen - are just bad.  

Buzzword City.

They don't help.

And the stakes are too high for your son or daughter to get bad training....

Because if they're like the other 15 million active baseball players or 9 million active softball players...

they're desperately competing for their goal of playing in HS/College/Pro with wrong information.

Wrong technique.

And to fall short of those life goals due to bad instruction is a complete shame...

and totally unnecessary.

But the flip side is - that by learning the keys of the big league swing

(from a big league coach, no less)

You can give your kid a big massive advantage over the competition.