What is the proper way to guage how high to set the tee for each player? My son's manager always uses the length of the bat to set the tee height, but that doesn't make sense to me, because several different players of varying heights often use the same bat.

Shouldn't the tee be set according to a spot on the child's body, such as waist height or belly-button height? Is there a standard rule of thumb?

-- mark johnson (mjohn1777@aol.com), April 13, 2000

Answers

I wouldn't want to second guess your son's manager, since he might have a good idea. When I was managing T-ball, I used to set it about belt high, or a couple inches higher. Kids that age seem to have a natural swing height around there. In my opinion it should be set at a comfortable height for the player.

I've seen "professional" batting coaches set the height at many different levels - this is for older kids, say 9-18 - based on what he was trying to teach the kids at that time.

I think that for T-ball, the best thing is to put it where the kids can hit it, wherever that is. I think that getting a good hit is the best part of T-ball, for the kids, building their self-esteem more than any other part of the game.

-- Andy Hughes (hughesa@open.org), April 13, 2000.