Posted by: Nick (nickkio@aol.com) on Wed Nov 26 13:57:37 2003

The Pete Rose clip has always been interesting to me. I don’t think there is any doubt he was a rotational hitter. My memories of him are not of a punch and judy hitter, but of someone who scorched a lot of line drives to all fields. I think RQL is right that he decided at some point to forego home runs for average and as a result did not attempt to get much lift. Now on to the theoretical and my poor version of a Tom Guerry analysis: the swing we see of Pete is almost a perfect circle. I think that for the guy who hits with power we would see a shortening of the swing radius as we got near the hitting zone. This is the “fish hook” and I think and it causes the bat to come around with more energy. In my mind I have envisioned what would happen if the bat was attached at the handle to a merry go round. The bat head would have the same speed as the merry go round. However, if the merry go round were to stop or be derailed the bat head would come flying around. This, I think is what reducing the radius accomplishes. However, I am far from certain. Hopefully Tom can step in here and help.

Nick