Brewers' Davis takes BP with beans and a broomstick

Khris Davis has been using a certain technique for batting practice since the age of 9, when he used to hit with his mom just a few miles away from the Brewers spring facility in Phoenix.

The outfielder keeps a broomstick with a taped-up handle and a bag of Mayacoba beans in his locker. A few times a week, one of the minor-league coaches will throw the beans to Davis from a couple feet away, and he'll hit them with the broomstick.

"You better have some glasses because if I shoot one back at you, it whizzes by," Davis told Todd Rosiak of the Journal-Sentinel. "No one's ever caught one (in the eye), but it's been close."

Davis said the task of hitting such a tiny object is a challenging one, even for someone with great eye-hand coordination. Contact with the beans varies from day-to-day, and a good day with the stick doesn't translate to a big day at the plate.

"I don't hit it every time. Sometimes I get, like, five in a row," he said. You'd be surprised at how many you can do in a row. But sometimes you swing and miss at 30."