Many sports experts consider hitting a baseball to be the most difficult single skill in all of sport. Trying to hit a round ball thrown from 60’ 6" up to 100 MPH with a round bat squarely is a daunting task. Excellent swing mechanics are requisite to being a good hitter. The faster the batter can be swung not only adds power to the swing, but allows the hitter more time to evaluate the pitch. At the highest level the decisions the batter makes on which pitches to swing at and which to take ultimately determine his success. The importance of visual reaction time is paramount. Therefore the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between bat speed and visual reaction time with selected performance measures of hitting ability. It was hypothesized that both visual reaction time and bat speed would be positively related to hitting ability. The measures of hitting ability were hits, total bases, batting average and slugging percentage. Nineteen Division I baseball players were selected for the study. The data were collected during the Fall Semester, 2000. Reaction time was measured with a Bassin Timer set at 10 (VRT10) and 20 MPH (VRT20). Bat speed was measured using a Set Pro SP-1A computer. All subjects used a 33" 30 Ounce metal bat. The hitting performance data were collected from Fall 2000 workout statistics. Pearson Product Moment Correlations were computed to examine the various relationships. Because of the sample size and composition correlations of .300 and above were considered to be practically significant. Only VTR20 correlated above this value with any of the hitting performance measures – a -.337 with hits. Bat speed had substantial correlations with all of the performance measures: .549 with hits, .511 with total bases, .522 with batting average, and .409 with slugging percentage. It was conclude that bat speed was an important determinate of hitting success. The lack of correlation between hitting success and VRT was probably due to the non specific nature of the visual reaction time test selected. The one substantial correlation was in the hypothesized direction. It is suggested that this relationship be studied in more detail with a more task specific VRT test.Keyword(s): athletics/sports, measurement/evaluation, performance