Posted by: () on Fri Nov 21 13:55:13 2003

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> I agree JJA. Maybe quicker could be defined better if we said takes less time to implement or develop. It gives us more time, which many of us who have hit 90 MPH plus are looking for.
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> Coach C

I, too, agree that there is a difference between bat quickness and bat speed. Bat quickness is how quickly you get the bat to the hitting zone while bat speed is how quickly the bat gets through the zone. This isn't a great definition but, like our Supreme Court justices and their attempts to define pornography, I know it when I see it.

To me, bat speed has more to do with how hard/far you hit the ball while bat quickness determines if you even hit the ball at all. My son struggled last season, for the first time, with hitting fast pitching. He was seeing kids throwing in the upper 80's, maybe the occasional 90, and he was consistently swinging under the ball. He was late. His bat speed was good because when he did make contact, the ball went hard and far.

It took me a long time to figure out what was going wrong: lack of bat quickness. And that has led me to read with great interest the various threads about how much to use the hands. I don't think you can dismiss the fact that many great hitters believe that quick hands are the key to the swing. What I think they are recognizing--even as they struggle to articulate it--is the need for bat quickness, and that has led me to cautiously experiment with teaching a little more emphasis on the hands. As we are in the middle of winter in Central Illinois (nice day today, though; 60+ degrees), I dont' know the outcome yet. I do think there are other ways to accomplish the same goal of bat quickness than emphasizing the hands. While many great hitters mention quick hands, not all do. That suggests that they have found other ways of generating quickness.

By the way, the problems for my son started when he broke his hand and then came back too quickly, but that's another story.