Posted by: Jack Mankin (Mrbatspeed@aol.com) on Sun Apr 20 15:18:47 2003

>>> IMHO every hitter has a circular hand path. Everyone rotates therefore everyones hand path turns circular at some point. I believe the tightness of the circular hand path is the issue. If your hands go straight to the ball they eventually turn circular as you rotate. But the path is not very tight. If your hands never go straight to the ball they turn circular immediately. This latter example is a much tighter hand path and allows much more quickness.

IMHO ARod is very linear and relies on his athletic gift to accomplish what he does. Less athletes cannot do what ARod does. And, it is my opinion, that ARod would have Bonds like numbers if he was rotational. <<<

Hi Teacherman

You are probably right in saying “everyones hand path turns circular at some point.” But “If your hands go straight to the ball they eventually turn circular as you rotate,” would mean that when they do start to go circular, they would be arcing away from the ball’s path toward third-base. The more arc in the hand-path, the less likely they can reach the outside pitch. Also, starting with a linear hand-path they would be generating less bat speed to really hit the outside pitch hard.

I do not see A-Rod’s swing as you and others describe it. Every frontal view of his swing I have seen show that his hands completely disappear behind his shoulder just before full initiation. When they reappear at shoulder rotation, the hand-path has already gone circular. This means his hands are first directed perpendicular to the ball’s path and not parallel with it.

Jack Mankin