Posted by: Greg Johnston (gjohnston@etbu.edu) on Mon Jul 3 22:27:16 2000

Jack made the observation from tapes that many hitters who appear to be pulling off the ball (head and front shoulder), especially on pitches middle/away are in fact not doing so before contact.

I think this is correct. I often hear coaches yelling at hitters to keep their front shoulder and especially their head in. But the shoulder has to come out in order to pull the bottom hand through. My reaction to this common announcement from various coaches is that the problem is not that the hitters have pulled off the ball by pulling their front shoulder out with their swing mechanics, but that they launched their swing too early given the velocity and location of the pitch. In other words, it isn't a mechanics problem (pulling the front shoulder out) but a timing problem (starting the rotational sequence too early). I wondered whether the tapes you observed (Jack) bear this out.