The Fungo Bat: The Coach's Secret Weapon

Let's talk about one of the most underrated tools in baseball: the fungo bat.

If you're coaching—or even just the unlucky parent who said "sure, I'll help out"—you've probably realized something: hitting fly balls and grounders to kids is harder than it looks. It's a different kind of hitting, and if you're out here swinging a full-size bat and launching knuckleballs into the outfield (or worse, straight into the dirt), you're not alone.

That's where the fungo bat comes in.

Why Do Coaches Use a Fungo?

A fungo bat is designed for one purpose: making it easier to hit accurate, controlled balls during fielding drills.

It's long, lightweight, and perfectly balanced to let you flick fly balls, laser grounders, and pop-ups without gassing out your arms in five minutes. When you're hitting dozens—sometimes hundreds—of balls at practice, that extra leverage and control is a game-changer.

And if you really want to see what fungo mastery looks like, this is what we should all aspire to. Accurate, consistent, and pure rock-star awesome. The Eddie Van Halen of fungo work:

"If the dugout is the beating heart of the team, those fungo reps build the confidence that makes it pump."

Fungo vs. The Alternatives

Top Fungo Recommendations

Finding the Right Fungo: A Personal Journey

I tried a few different options before landing on the Warstic Bonesaber:

• I swung a wooden bat—too heavy.
• An old kids' bat—not enough control.
• Even a BBCOR bat—still felt clunky.

Then I saw the Bonesaber. And listen, I'm going to be honest here—the first thing that caught my eye? The look.

It just looked cool. That black finish, the clean design—everything about it screamed this is the fungo of legends. But what really made it my forever fungo?

It was a birthday gift from my family.

That automatically made it the ultimate best option for me. Let's be real—if they had wrapped up a pool noodle and called it a fungo, I'd probably be out there singing its praises as the best training tool on the market.

But hey, this bat really did turn out to be the perfect fungo for me.

Bottom Line

A fungo bat isn't just about making your life easier—it's about making you a better coach.

If you take the time to get better at hitting grounders, your kids will get better at fielding them. If you work on hitting pop flies with accuracy, your outfielders will improve faster. If you push yourself to improve, your whole team benefits.

So yeah, you could use a random kids' bat or a giant Slugger. You might even grab a fungo racket when you need to launch perfect flies. But if you really want to do it right?