After he hung up his cleats, and put on his coaching turfs Eugene Bleecker realized that many of his students were exhibiting the same problems. He began instructing at 17 as a side job while he was pursuing his own career in baseball. Now instructing between 40 and 50 athletes a week he found that the most common problem among his students was simply holding the bat wrong. “Holding the bat properly plays a pivotal role in your success at the plate. Holding the bat in the fingers is a universally taught theory for a reason, it provides for more bat speed and extension which generates more power.”
One day Coach Bleecker confided in his good friend Lou Rivera, an instructor and owner of West Coast Professional Baseball. Coach Bleecker explained the fact that over half of his students weren’t holding the bat correctly and he wanted to find a way to help them overcome this bad habit. He found that he would do a lesson and correct the position of the students hands on the bat for one session. However, that same student would return to the same bad habit at the next lesson. Coach Rivera suggested that Coach Bleecker develop a product that would correct this problem. Kids begin playing baseball as young as three or four years old. Therefore, as they get older, they have taken thousands of swings incorrectly and have developed muscle memory for these incorrect swings. Progrip is the solution! Changing these bad habits is uncomfortable because these athletes know nothing else but the bad habits they have developed.
After taking the advice of Coach Rivera, Coach Bleecker immediately set to work on creating what is now the Progrip. He began experimenting with foam and modeling clay. He knew he had the right design when the product felt comfortable in his hands. Progrip forces the bat out of the palms and into the fingers. By swinging with Progrip on the bat it teaches the hands the correct positioning and eventually makes it not only comfortable to hold the bat properly but automatic.
After creating Progrip, Coach Bleecker was anxious to patent his product with the legal advice of his attorney grandfather John J. Sullivan. Later, he began prototyping his product and sent Progrip off to be manufactured.
With manufacturing underway, Coach Bleecker began to tackle the question, “How will I teach my students to use Progrip?” First, he thought to license out the product or enlist the help of professional ball players, but that was too expensive. But then he thought who better to talk about Progrip than the creator. Coach Bleecker knew that youth athletes these days want something they could pop into their PC or DVD player. This is what lead to the development of Progrip’s DVD that explains and demonstrates exactly how to use the Progrip.
At this point Eugene understood he would be going to events to present his products to teams but he began to wonder, “If a team comes to me to see what I am presenting and half of them hold the bat wrong, that means the other half hold the bat correctly. What will I have for them?” The answer was information. Coach Bleecker spent his entire life learning how to become a better baseball player and he saw this as an opportunity to use this knowledge to teach athletes the fundamentals of baseball on a large scale. He began developing “Complete Hitting” immediately. As a hitting instructor Coach Bleecker understands that hitting instruction is expensive and wanted to put the tools of a hitting instructor into the hands of the parents, players and coaches alike. He began putting together a base of knowledge that he believes is the foundation of every hitter which developed into “The Eight Essential Pieces to a Smooth Swing”. “I’m prouder of the Eight Essentials than I am of anything else I’ve done so far. There are so many hitting instructors around and everyone has their own terminology and way of teaching, but the things I talk about are important to EVERY HITTER and teaching the swing through this format is a really easy way to learn proper mechanics.” After giving viewers a base of knowledge for the proper swing, Coach Bleecker wanted to show viewers what not to do. He found that baseball players all over exhibit many of the same bad habits ie. (wrapping the hands, rolling over, stepping in the bucket) so he put together a section of the most common bad habits and he shows you what they look like, teaches you why they are bad, but most importantly shows you how a hitting instructor corrects those problems. Bleecker also incorporates a section of drills to help develop proper swing mechanics and provides a section of tips that any hitter can immediately add to their game. “This DVD is called Complete Hitting because that’s what I teach. My students hit from line to line, they know not only what their job is at all times on the field, but how to execute their tasks as well. Complete Hitting teaches each player to be mentally and physically prepared every time they set foot on the field.”
Users of Progrip and the “Complete Hitting” DVD can look forward to future DVD’s. There will is a sequel to the “Complete Hitting” DVD in the works already. Coach Bleecker has been a catcher his whole baseball career and is in the process of creating, “The Art of Catching”.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit” –Aristotle