Posted by: Dave (cdpaetkau@telus.net) on Fri Feb 14 16:48:06 2003

At the point which the pitcher has started their wind up the second last thing a hitter should do is to focus on the release point. Now remember a person can only focus for 1.75 sec (analysis by scientic experiment) before we start to lose focus. The ball is released and the identifiction of the spin of the ball (in order to reconize movement) is the final piece of the hitting puzzle. From that point on the batter must rely on trained muscle responses to respond to previously imputed stimuli in order to make a decision to perform the act of swinging the bat. There is not enough time to conciously think about swinging it must be a learned response.

The important thing to remember that after the final stimuli is imputted into the system you only have .4 of a sec to get your bat into the hitting zone. This is the time that 1000's of swings before have trained our muscles to react and perform the proper or improper swing in order to achieve a goal that only happens successfully 1 out of 10 to 15 times. Remember that we swing more then we have at bats so the .333 hitter is is attempting way more then his or her at bats indicate. Now of course there are small successes along the way, fouling off a good pitch or taking a walk because you did not swing but we are measured by batting average more then any other stat in the hitting book.