Posted by: Bart () on Sun Apr 20 13:09:28 2003

Jack,
>
> In one of the posts that was deleted in the message board disaster, you defined bottom hand torque (BHT) as:
>
> “A swing mechanic that applies torque to the bat by pulling the bottom-hand back around the top-hand -- as opposed to driving the top-hand past the bottom-hand.”
>
> And I asked the question, "Why can't it be both?"
>
> Could you please answer?
>
> Thanks,
> ray porco

ray, I'll put in my 2 cents even though the Q was directed to Jack. I disagree with Jack ( I think someone else did as well). Pulling the bottom hand around the top hand doesn't make any sense (maybe a typo by Jack?). If anything, it's the top hand pushing around the bottom. Anatomy....in the CHP, near the end of the circle (actually, it's roughly a half-circle)is also near the point of contact. For a left handed batter, the hands are headed roughly in the direction of the firstbaseman. To contact the mid/os part of the ball, the hands would have to keep headed in that direction. In order for the bottom hand to go around the top hand, the bottom hand would have to attempt to reverse direction, and redirect toward the 2nd baseman!The bathead would be re-oriented, and contact would be made on the INSIDE part of the ball. In other words, an inside-out swing. Surely this is not what Jack had in mind.

Why not both? True, up to a certain point, both hands are at work. But near contact, the bottom hand acts as an axis for which the top hand will rotate around & finish the job.By contact both hands might very well start to slow down. When I say the top hand finishes the job I'm talking about the role the hand plays in the final orientation of the bathead.This orientation helps dictate what part of the ball is contacted (is, os, mid) which in turn dictates the field the ball goes to. And I submit that an is pitch hit to the pull field will be harder hit than an is pitch hit to the opposite field.