Danielle Stewart Danielle Stewart
Images: Duane Hart Sporting Images

Video Games 

Throughout our domestic competition, we’ve hired a video analyst who’s taped all the games and then put them in movie files for each player. At the end of each tournament she gives me a little USB stick that has all my bats on it. I then go back to our Australian coach – Fabian Barlow, fortunately he’s based in Brisbane – and he’ll work through the mechanics and technique of my swing. This is particularly something we do earlier in the season. Now that the world champs are approaching it’s not the time where we want to be worrying about technique – we just want repetition, getting at bat, getting at bat ...

Homework 

Just as we tape our own batters, we obviously tape the opposition pitchers as well. From these clips I’ll take note of the pitchers’ patterns, their signals, what they like to throw to me. Take the USA, for example. Their pitching staff is the best in the world and typically they’ll pitch to their strengths. They don’t show flexibility for individual players – they’ll continue pitching to their strength. They’ve been so successful with that they haven’t had to develop game plans for individual hitters. Personally, I want to have a game plan for each pitcher.

We can also put these clips up on a big screen and then stand in front of it and watch their action, mimic our own swing, get familiar with seeing them front-on. Most pitchers have some sort of tendencies – a certain grip on the ball, for example, or holding the ball in a certain part of their glove – and we really try to learn these tendencies so we have some idea of the pitch we’re likely to receive. You’ve got to have a notebook – this knowledge bank is crucial.

We’ve learnt from men’s softball – the Australian men recently won the world championships and they said they knew they were going to win because they had everything planned. They knew exactly what they were going to receive from different pitchers, different batters. They had it all calculated out. If plan A didn’t work, they had a plan B. The key to their success was doing their homework. That’s become our plan, too.

Learning To Fail 

If you hit three out of ten and get a batting average of .300 you’re a superstar – so how do you get used to failing seven times? It’s just exposure – the more you play, the more you get used to it. You have to be willing to fail. Besides,

a lot of the time it just comes down to luck. You can hit a fantastic ball but someone can take a diving catch. You’ve got to accept that luck plays a big part in this sport.

Personally, I find a good way of dealing with this is having the same routine, the same approach, every time I go to the batter’s box. I have seven steps from the dugout to the plate – watching the pitcher, see if they’re hitting their spots, understand the umpire’s zone etc – and I follow these steps every time I go to bat. When I’m at the plate I don’t want to be thinking about anything technical. I just have a single keyword in my head – normally that’s “explode”. When you’re in the batter’s box all you want to be thinking is: see the ball, hit the ball, breathe.

And, of course, after each pitch you’ve got time to review what just happened. You’ve got to be honest with yourself, but you’ve also got to let it go. You get three to four at-bats a game and then you’ve got to move on and field. Your situation’s constantly changing, so you can’t get stuck on one moment –  you have to be resilient.

– Aaron Scott