Posted by: () on Sat Aug 12 12:55:15 2000

>>>JACK.....my son, who throws right but has always batted left had always had a severe "inside-out" swing....hit great to lef & center but the only thing he could pull to the right side was a grounder to 1b or 2b....couldn't get help from pro instructors (one of them axtually suggested the fence drill, believe it or not)....continually taped him/analyzed/experimented & in the end, this is what helped him ....it was obvious from the tapes that he did not have a circular hand path & he recognized that he needed one...problem was that he could just not get his hands to do what he knew they were supposed to do, especially when game time came along....but then we tried this: contrary to common advice against bat "wrapping", i had a hunch that if his bat stayed "wrapped" somewhat like gary sheffield, without him even thinking about it, his hands could be "forced" to start out on a circular path....we tried it and it work.....and all the while any connection to this idea & the top hand torque did not occur to me....until today...i was going back to your materials & ran across "energy of rotation" with the 2 diagrams, one of the "average" hitter & one of the "great" hitter...i noticed that in the diagram of the great hitter you show the forces of the bathead going in one direction & the forces of the knob going in the opposite direction....THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS VISUALIZING as the way for my son to develop a circular hand path!!!! tom.guerry tried a number of times to articulate the top-hand torque concept & i couldn't understand it before...and yet, does it sound to you like i may have have stumbled on to the concept, or am i completely off-base? i would greatly appreciate a response from you or anyone else who is extremely familiar with the concept.....and i may very well have more questions...respectfully, grc.....P.S. yesterday i finally got around to ordering the video !!!<<<

Hi grc

Yes, you are correct in believing that applying top-hand-torque (top hand pulling back toward the catcher) will aid in developing a circular hand-path. --- It requires far more energy to accelerate the bat-head in an arc as opposed to accelerating the bat lengthwise. Therefor the hands will always seek the path of least resistance (generating less bat speed) which is a straight line. So when the batter initiates the swing, the inertia of the bat tends to cause the lead elbow to bend so the hands can follow the path of least resistance.

Thrusting the top hand forward will also force the lead arm to breakdown and produces the straighter hand-path. But the pulling back of the top hand aids in maintaining a straighter lead arm. Now, as the body rotates, a more angular hand-path will be generated and thus more bat speed. --- Also, when torque is applied at initiation, the bat will rotate about a point between the hands. The angular momentum (pulling away from the center) of the of the bat will also aid in keeping the lead arm from bending. --- Only the best hitters has ever felt that pulling sensation before contact.

Jack Mankin