Baseball and tennis more alike than we think
Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette was once encouraged to pursue a professional tennis career by his father. Photo: Orlin Wagner/AP
April 8, 2020
By Scott Langdon
Canadian Baseball Network
The Wimbledon championships, the iconic tennis tournament, have been cancelled for 2020. The World Baseball Classic qualifier games in Arizona and the Women’s World Cup of Baseball slated for Mexico in Sept. have been postponed. Will MLB’s World Series, the fall classic, meet the same fate?
Major League Baseball (MLB) announced the cancellation of spring training games and a delay of at least two weeks for 2020 opening days around the American and National Leagues in mid-March. Four days later MLB said the season was postponed indefinitely on the advice of the Center for Disease Control in the U.S. No plans have been announced for the resumption of the season and the World Series.
For tennis and baseball fans, their most celebrated championships could both have an asterisk beside the year 2020 in the annals of the two sports.
But tennis and baseball have far more in common than the fate of these two championships. According to experts, the playing skills of the two sports are remarkably similar, but different enough that adapting from one to the other can be challenging.
Blue Jays’ shortstop Bo Bichette was encouraged at one time by his father, former MLB star Dante Bichette, to play tennis rather than baseball.
“I told him you can write your own lineup in tennis. You either win or you lose on your own merits. In baseball, sometimes you have to rely on the politics of who is writing the lineup,” he told Sportsnet.ca.
The younger Bichette tweeted a video of a tennis cross-training session in the off-season, prompting well known tennis coach and broadcaster Darren Cahill to observe: “Excellent forehand. Wouldn’t take much work to make this into a real beast. Loose arm and fast hands. Great footwork also.”
Bichette’s skills are some examples of the similarities of the two sports.
“I make my living as a teaching tennis pro, but baseball is my favorite sport, my first love,’” said Steve Getchell, 51, Director of Fitness and Racquet Sports at River Wilderness Country Club, Parrish, Fl. “At a recreational level, baseball is the more difficult of the two to play in my opinion because tennis tends to be more social and has different levels that don’t necessarily require high skill.”
“But if you want to continue playing recreational baseball as an adult, you have to be pretty good because there aren’t a lot of teams or open roster spots,” he added.
Getchell was an infielder and pitcher in college baseball in Massachusetts before turning to tennis where he instructed at Saddlebrook Resort, one of the top adult tennis camp facilities in the world.
Andre Lachance, Director, Sport Development and Women’s National Team, Baseball Canada agrees there are many similarities, but points out the competition system in the two sports are different.
“In tennis, the player can decide when to play, skipping one tournament to prepare for another. Baseball, on the other hand, is typically played every day according to a pre-determined schedule. This makes it easier for a tennis player to prepare skills for peak performance,” he said.
Footwork, hand-eye coordination, conditioning and the mental parts of the two sports are similar.
Footwork
“In both sports, much of the footwork is about the small step patterns. For example, a baseball catcher needs proper small steps to round a bunt, field it and have the feet in the best position possible to throw. It is quite similar to an inside/out forehand in tennis. You use small steps to run around the ball, position your body far enough away from it and then hit a forehand when you would otherwise hit a backhand. Obviously, you’re making both plays quickly.
“Another example…a crow hop is the small step foot pattern for an infielder in baseball to move from a fielding to throwing position. In tennis, the footwork pattern for a drop step is similar although the purpose is to be ready sooner. The crow hop is about balanced throwing.”
Hand/eye coordination
Getchell says, “It’s all about hand/eye in both sports. Timing is crucial and that is primarily a function of hand/eye coordination and footwork.
“Watch Roger Federer hit a tennis ball on television. His head is still down looking at the contact point and the ball is long gone. Same with a great hitter in baseball and there are many. Contact, ball off the bat, head still down. Whether tennis or baseball, you can’t hit what you can’t see as they say.”
Getchell points out the size of the court and the field are important factors.
“The top speed of a great tennis forehand is about one hundred miles an hour, like a great fastball in baseball. But a pitcher’s mound at the professional level and for teenagers is 60 feet, six inches. Deduct a few feet and the release point of the ball is closer to the batter than that. In tennis the court is 78 feet long and players often play behind the baseline. As a result, hand/eye in baseball is more required in some ways. Hitting a baseball, in my opinion, is more difficult.”
Mechanics
Getchell says mastering the physical mechanics of the two sports is critical to playing them well.
“Good, consistent mechanics in both baseball and tennis are typically the difference between a good player and a not-so-good player.”
Ontario Tennis Association director Rick Bertozzi was developing his tennis skills in the 1960s, often using instructional tips from Tennis Magazine which featured a series of articles about playing tennis using baseball-type mechanics.
“The magazine always gave examples how tennis was similar to other sports. I still have the binder I kept them in. Many of them relate to baseball.”
Those instructional tips included:
Like a pitcher
• Warm your serve like a relief pitcher. Start slowly, using the arm and little body motion. Then as you warm up begin hitting harder with more body and more spin as a pitcher would work up to trying pitches other than a fastball.
• Vary your serves as a pitcher varies spin, speed and placement.
• Play a short game of catch before a tennis match to warm up your serve. Incorporate the mechanics of a throwing motion. Stand sideways, keep a loose arm and ample shoulder turn and snap your wrist like a pitcher.
Like an infielder
• Get set like an infielder to return serve. Legs flexed, knees bent slightly so the weight is forward and distributed evenly on the balls of your feet.
• Field half volleys like an infielder fields a short hop ground ball. Knees bent, low to the ball, catch out front of the body.
• Take the ball on the rise as an infielder takes the ball at the height of its bounce in less time to out-advantage your opponent.
• Like a third baseman who cuts in front of the shortstop diagonally to cut the ball off, cut across to poach at the net in doubles.
• Be a good net player in doubles by moving like an infielder. Step forward, use a small hop or split step in anticipation of the ball.
Like an outfielder
• When returning a lob near the fence at the back of the court, use your racquet as a baseball outfielder uses the warning track to stay away from the fence yet keep your eye on the ball.
• Get behind an overhead as an outfielder does a fly ball. Position yourself a little behind the ball and move forward to hit as an outfielder would to throw.
Like a batter
• Keep a still head for consistent ground strokes. This is also key to hit a baseball.
• Improve your average like a baseball player. Hit steady singles. Don’t go for home runs. Keep errors to a minimum and play the percentages.
• For more powerful ground strokes, swing like a batter. Step forward with front foot, pivot off back leg, and rotate hips and shoulders forward.
• Hit two-handed backhands by turning your back, looking over the front shoulder at the ball. Uncoil your hips and shoulders, rotating your body into the shot as a hitter does.
• Don’t get jammed on your ground strokes. Be in a position to extend your arms and meet the ball out front.
Like a baserunner
• Poach at the net like a baserunner. Move at the net once the opponent commits himself as a baserunner does against a pitcher.
• To run down lobs, run around behind it as a runner does a banana curl around a base
• To poach at the net copy a baserunner in baseball. A runner distracts the pitcher, then runs directly toward the base. Throw in some fakes at the net then move directly forward to the ball to put it away.
Conditioning
Getchell says athletes in any sport have to be in good physical condition to be at their best. But he points out that a 10-pitch at bat in baseball is uncommon, while a 10-ball rally in tennis is not. The tennis rally requires constant movement.
“Physical conditioning is a big deal in tennis. A player is constantly moving during a 90 minute or two-hour match. If you are not in shape you will lose. Not so much in baseball where the leftfielder, for example, could be standing for multiple innings without a ball hit there.”
Simon Burden, a Certified Pro 1 tennis coach who runs programs and instructs in the City of Vaughan, Ont. and in North York, points out that the average rally in tennis is four shots. Rallies of nine or more shots occur about 10 per cent of the time. He just laughs when reminded of the longest rally in professional tennis history.
In 1984, Vicky Nelson and Jean Hepner had a 643-shot rally as part of a two-set, six-hour, 22 min singles match.
“One of the differences between baseball and tennis is the ball-striking is done more consistently in tennis, requiring good physical conditioning. But that rally was a bit rare to say the least.”
Which sport to play?
Which of the two sports should children be encouraged to play?
Lachance of Baseball Canada says from birth to the age of 12 children should be encouraged to play multiple sports, tennis and baseball among them.
“This helps to build what we call physical literacy or the ability to move with confidence in different environments such as tennis and baseball provide. It helps children decide eventually which sport is best for them. Kai Correa, the infield instructor for the San Francisco Giants, joined us for an online discussion the other night about infield play in baseball. He started his presentation by talking about tennis. He was a tennis player in his first life.”
“I would say both sports,” Burden said. “There could be scheduling issues, of course, because both are summer sports primarily, but I preach the value of playing multiple sports for a few reasons. One of them is the opportunity to develop transferable skills, of which there are many in baseball and tennis, but also to develop other skills as well.
“It seems more people move from baseball to tennis than the reverse, but the reason is cultural. Tennis has been historically viewed as a ‘rich man’s sport’. Baseball has always been more of a sport for the masses if you like.”
Difficulty
Deciding which sport is more difficult to play is open for debate.
Who better to ask than Sue Parsons Zipay, 86, of Englewood, Fla.?
She played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League which operated from 1943 to 1954. She was featured in the movie A League of Their Own which told the story of the League, and later she became a teaching tennis pro after being a nationally-ranked amateur player in the U.S. She also owned and operated the Englewood Tennis Club.
“Tennis is more difficult I think because of the mental aspect. A tennis player can’t be replaced on a bad day. It is difficult to learn to concentrate and keep your brain engaged in each moment of a match. It is a learned skill.
“After my first tennis lesson, the instructor said I move well. That’s it. So, you know what? An athlete is an athlete. A shortstop or a tennis player…they are both athletes. They keep their knees bent, move quickly and anticipate, moving almost before the ball is hit. Baseball players can become good tennis players and I think the reverse is true, too.”