Gameday spoke to the coach on a May afternoon in which Tino Martinez had an early appointment to work with Page, before a night game against the Florida Marlins. As planned, Page would “soft toss” pitches to the slumping first baseman in the indoor cage, allowing Martinez to examine his swing in slow motion.

“I never wait for a player to come to me,” Page says. “But I pick my spot. If the trouble is mental, Tony (LaRussa) will see that. And I will probably mention it to him. If it’s totally mental, you give the a guy a couple of days off and let him relax his mind. That’s the Number 1 thing.

“The second thing is, ‘What kind of position is he getting in to hit this pitch?’ Like Tino, he’s got to slow down his lower half. Sometimes J.D. (Drew) is quick down below, too. We’re going to work on Tino's lower half; where he's driving through the ball instead of coming off the ball too early with his hip. It's not his swing; he's just a little quick down below."

The day's work may have paid off in the evening, as Martinez parked two home runs in a 6-4 Cardinals victory. It marked his first memorable game at the plate as a Redbird. "I love to see a player succeed," Page says. "The worst thing I can have is for a hitter to say, 'I have no clue what I'm doing up there.' I take that personal. Because it's my job to see that he's prepared, that he has the information on the pitcher and that he's got a good (mechanical) foundation."

With knowledge gleaned from an eight season big-league playing career with the Oakland A's and Pittsburgh Pirates, followed by coaching stints with the Kansas City Royals and A's, Page came to the Cardinals organization in 1998 as the batting coach at Triple-A Memphis. He became minor league hitting coordinator the next season, and in July 2001 he took over the Cardinals' hitting post, replacing Mike Easler.

An outfielder, and a left handed line-drive hitter as a player, he burst into the big leagues with Oakland in 1977, batting .307, with 21 home runs. The Sporting News selected him its American League Rookie of the Year, but Page never hit as well again, finishing with a .266 career average. Having become a coach, he believes that he might have fared better as a hitter if he'd been better advised.

"I wish I had had somebody around me like me when I played," Page says. "The last three or four years of my career I went through a bad period. My swing got longer and I got very little help. The coaching that players get now - it wasn't there then. You were almost on your own, or your teammates would help you more than the coaches. We never had an indoor batting cage, quality places to work, never had the videos that you could set up and really see a pitcher."

But his need to educate himself pays off today. Players trust him as a graduate of the school of hard knocks. They respect that he can relate to their struggles.

"The way I look at it, I've been to the war," Page says. "I went out there and faced Nolan Ryan, Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter and those guys.

"So -did I ever chase a ball in the dirt?
Yes.
"So -do I get ticked at a guy, thinking,

read more...






BATTING COACH MITCHELL PAGE CALLS FOR THE BEST FROM CARDINAL HITTERS
(cont'd)


"Tuck it," for example, is Page's key for Edgar Renteria.
Albert Pujols will hear, "Slow down." For Mike Matheny, it's "Get started early."

Page keeps the keys simple, first because a big leaguer's misalignment typically calls for l tweak rather than an overhaul; second, because the heat of a ballgame is not the best time to launch a complex batting lesson.

"What I say has to be very minor and very simple, and I've got to be sharp enough to see it and say it," Page says. "Edgar is probably one of my best pupils, but sometimes he'll let his front elbow fly out and I'll tell him to 'tuck it.' He'll go up there the next time and hit a line drive just by making a quick adjustment.

"Pujols will rush himself, and I'll tell him, 'Slow down.' 'Don't jump out at the ball.' 'Stay on the back side.'

"With Matheny, it's 'Make sure you're ready.' 'Get started early.' Last year he was constantly getting into position late, so he'd get beat. So what's he doing this year? He's getting set. His strikeouts are down and his walks are up."

Page keeps the keys short for another reason. He believes that a clean brain hits better than one filled with clutter. It's a philosophy that youth-league coaches might take seriously. The litany of inane tips shouted during a youngster's trip to the plate can confuse the bat right from a player's hands.

All of my work is about 'no thinking,' " Page says. "The worst thing you can do is give a hitter too much to think about. There should be no thinking so that it's all a physical thing.

"So, how do you get where you don't have to think? Well, you've got to get a player to feel it when he's doing something right and learn to recognize it. The best thing you can hear from a player is, 'Boy, that felt good.' You want him to feel it and know it when it's right and when it's wrong."

The "no-think" theory seeks to eliminate a hitter's concern about his body action. It doesn't mean he goes to the plate without a plan. Properly prepared, a hitter's body will respond to pitches instinctively, leaving his mind free to assess the pitcher.

"The mental part comes in figuring out the man on the mound: 'What is this pitcher going to throw?' 'How is he going to pitch me with two strikes?' 'What's he going to do 2 and 0?' Page says. 'It's being prepared to hit this particular pitcher.' When a player struggles, Page may address the problem in several ways.