Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Thu Mar 6 09:42:23 2003

The impression I got from "the physics of baseball" is that both linear and rotational forces are at work.
> > >
> > > In slowpitch softball they are without a doubt both at work.I concentrate on my bat rotating around my head(and have taught my daughter by saying it's like earth rotating around the sun...
> > > You're head is the sun and earth is at the tip of your bat.)
> > >
> > > One can hit a softball(slowpitch) much further by stepping into it (rather than taking a wider baseball stance with little movement toward the mound)
> > >
> > > This "step" allows the softball hitter to "cock" his body, now that his body is moving forward and his bat has remained back he is like a jack in the box ready to explode on the ball.Also, the step allows the batter to rotate with more power.Don't you think linear power can be converted to rotational power during the swing?
> >
> > >>>After 37 years in this game, I have still never figured out what a LINEAR hitter is or who teaches it. I see posts every week about linear vs rotational, but no one has ever given me an explanation or pointed out a book that teaches linear hitting. Who teaches it and what is it. I know what it says in the dictionary. Does any one know?<<<<
>
> New message: There is no such. People with pseudo-scientific papers authorizing themselves as experts in pseudo sciences such as exercise physiology and kinesiology, and some people in professional baseball who came under their spell, grossly misinterpreted what they were seeing and compounded their misinterpretation with the puffery of their pseudo sciences. They called it linear hitting. Unbelievably, some great athletes with fine talent followed and endorsed them. A small group remains that found old texts in libraries and such. They read these things and are like Japanese soldiers found in the 1960s who thought the war was still going on.
>
> Melvin

Are you serious? when? who won?