What a craptacular answer. At least try to explain it.
Its partly nervous habit, partly to intimidate the pitcher (as is all the other “batter positioning” crap - twirling the bat, holding it at arms length and pointing it at the outfield fence a la “The Natural” (like you actually want to project where you’re going to try to hit).
You’re baiting the pitcher. If he puts it into the strike zone, you’re going to hit it. Or, you’re just making the ump happy by bouncing the sand of the plate, which he would otherwise have to brush off. Its nice to have ump points for those high and outside pitches.
If you have to judge your position relative to the plate by tapping it, aint no way you’re going to hit that ball travelling in 3D space at 70mph+
I recall seeing studies that showed the batter had a better chance of hitting the ball if there was a significant time period (30-60 seconds) between pitches. Something about the batter having time to re-adjust himself, vs. tending to react to this pitch based on the last pitch.
So the pitcher has an incentive to throw the next pitch quickly, while the batter has an incentive to delay the next pitch.
So you see batters doing all kinds of things – stepping back from the plate, loosening/tightening their gloves, rubbing their hands together, adjusting their batting helmet, stepping back into the box, pounding the plate with their bat, adjusting their stance, etc. – all of which serve as delaying tactics.
And no doubt, they are reassuring to the batter. Many baseball players are very superstitious, and have various ‘rituals’ they have to do in the proper order to avoid bad luck.
While you may be completely correct about the studies, as a former varsity intercollegiate baseball player I can attest to it NOT being so much about “delaying” the pitch as it is about “resetting” the atmosphere.
Hitting is a game of intense repetition. I think you will notice that the vast majority of baseball players will go through their routine before stepping into the box, and they will step out between pitches and basically do the same exact thing.
Players won’t so much think about what the last pitch was, as they will -through practice- know the situation (balls, strikes, outs, runners on) instinctually and “know” what the next pitch will likely be. This is why statistics in baseball are so much more dramatically accurate than in any other sport.
Thinking is about the worst thing a hitter can do in a game. IMHO.
While I do agree that baseball players are as superstitious as any sports figures (a possible exception may be NHL players during the playoffs — think no shaving), I still think that counts for little of the pre-pitch routine. As **homeboy ** states, the main reason the pre-pitch routine is done IMHO is the same reason why basketball players will dribble the same way before each free throw, it’s just a matter of routine and getting yourself ready for the action. It is a concentration mechanism to try to make the game seem like every day of practice.
Another possible reason to pound the bat; to check if it’s cracked. Did anyone see Bobby Abreu of the Yankees in the ALDS with Cleveland a couple of weeks ago? He stepped up to the plate, tapped his bat on home plate, and the bat broke off in his hands. Hilarious. I’ve never seen that before. But better to break then than while hitting a ball.
Most hitters will also start into a rhythmic back-and-forth motion once they are at the plate. You can often see traces of the same motion once they are settled into stance.
