Posted by: Teacherman () on Tue Feb 18 11:33:30 2003

Hey Tom, you are a big Epstein guy - I have read his articles to collegiate baseball and watched his tapes and for the life of me cannot figure out HOW EXACTLY a hitter is supposed to get the bathead on plane with the incoming pitch.
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> Weathervaning aside (that is a whole nother issue), what is the key thing for a hitter to do in order to get on plane? Is it the elbows or the hand path or what?
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> If the front elbow is working UP then how can you keep the bathead from going DOWN? Do you wait until you know where the pitch location is before you get your elbows in the slot? That's got to be impossible for the average hitter facing a great pitcher. Who can wait that long? Is that when all this guessing stuff comes in?
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> GETTING on PLANE is a simple cue but not that simple to do unless you are hitting off a pitching machine throwing the pitch in the same location pitch after pitch after pitch.

Rockys

Front heel drops, rear heel lifts, back shoulder dips all at the same time. That sets the general upswing to match the plane. Posture adjustments are also involved (body tilt). Smaller adjustments can be made by raising or lowering lead elbow. Obviously the bathead goes down before it goes up. The hands start at or near the shoulders/arm pit and end at the ball which is usually waist high or below. But, it's going up through the contact zone. What's so difficult?