Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Thu Dec 4 16:33:02 2003

The youth baseball clips show identical views of Bonds and Lugo's arm action during the swing from behind.See Bonds01 and L_Gonzalez02.

Bonds has a very vertical bat,Lugo more of a "flatbat" (horizontal) approach.

Bonds accentuates the back arm sequence of:

1- internal rotation of back arm with hip cock ("hitch"),bat goes pat vertical,

2-back scap pinch/load, bat points/circles more toward pitcher and gets more horizontal/"centers"

3-back elbow "slots" primarily via external rotation of back arm.has to be internally rotated before this and scap has to stay loaded.top hand stays back/keeps relation to back shoulder

(As an aside,Hank Aaron maximally accentuated this sequence)

Lugo's motion is very minimal,probably because he uses the lower body more actively to create coil/twist/torion via the first stride in which accentuates the inward turn of the body,and the very pigen toed back foot which boosts the hips open.

For him to slot the back elbow while continuing to load/coil,I think he must still slot the back elbow primarily via external rotation.This means that when he starts with the high hands in the stance and the bat stays fairly low he must have the back arm internally rotated and the back scap already pinched to some degree,and therefore does not accentuate the hitch and scap load the way Bonds does.