BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tyler Minges, 18, a senior at Ross High School, is widely regarded by scouts as one of best high school hitters in the Tristate. He is bound for pro baseball or Georgia Tech University on scholarship. He and brothers Jason, Ryan and Justin -- all of them high school or college baseball players -- are the four sons of Larry and Christa Minges of Ross Township.
Larry, a former high school baseball player and college football player, and Christa, daughter of former Green Bay Packer running back Floyd (Breezy) Reid, rolled rubber balls to the boys on the living room floor as soon as they could sit up.
Larry began pitching to them in the front yard even before they started in organized leagues (tee ball) at age 5. He grooved fat pitches from a gradually lengthening distance to build confidence. Tyler is No. 3 son. Jason is six years older; Ryan, two years older; Justin, two years younger. Together, they played ball out front with a broom handle and a Nerf ball for hours on end. Tyler credits this game for his hand-eye coordination.
By age 12, Tyler was already learning technique. He watched Ryan's team practice. Coach Marlon Styles (now a Reds scout) taught his 14- and 15-year-old hitters to keep their shoulders "tucked in" so they could explode into the pitch and keep their hips from "flying out."
By 14, Tyler had fully adopted a technique to enhance tucked-in shoulders that was taught by Ross High assistant coach Jay Lyttle: using your normal stance at the plate, turn both your feet slightly inward. It makes for a "pigeon-toed" stance, but it works, Minges said. His feet are shoulder-length width; his stride 6-10 inches. He swears by the "Tony Gwynn Solo Hitter" that he has set up in his backyard. It's a tee-type device with three strings and balls that teach hitting to all fields.
He also likes soft-toss drills (delivered from just off the side of the plate) because they provide a lot of swings in a little time and makes you follow a moving ball.
And he likes "pepper" games in which a hitter using a choked-up grip hits pitches back to close-in throwers - fielders.
What hitting games - devices doesn't Minges like?
"Hitting off a machine," he said. "Going to the batting cage early in the season to get a couple of cuts in is OK, but otherwise, it just screws up my timing and it isn't realistic. I like having to follow the ball out of the pitcher's hand."
The Minges boys were always playing baseball. Friends told Larry he was going to burn the boys out, but it was the boys who were doing all the ball-playing and they were doing it of their own volition. "If you're 6-foot-10, you can play basketball. If you weigh 280 pounds, you can play football. But you can't play baseball unless you love it."
