Posted by: donny (donnybstr@aol.com) on Thu Dec 11 12:53:56 2003

I read the shooting for the moon excerpt, but i think you might want to consider the guys you are looking at. Bonds, Williams, Sosa, and others are some of the best hitters of all time, and most gifted people of all time. Most of us are teaching kids who are not going to be Hall-of-Famer's. Why do you not look at the swings of some little guys, over achievers, a la David Eckstein or Kirby Puckett even the Mick and Hank Aaron. You will find many of your principles hold true, but you will also find that weight transfer and a lot of the linear concepts are also apparent. They were able to keep there heads still while driving there weight into the ball. Many of them did keep there front sides down and extend there back sides through the ball. Watch some old episodes of the original Homerun Derby. Guys who weren't juiced up, driving there weight into the ball. I think you will be impressed.

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>If we are talking about teaching youth ball then .....
>I think there is room for compromise in the upper body approach for beginners. Placing the hands cocked at the rear shoulder can work well (a la Ripken). Top hands torque generated by starting the bat vertical and raising/circling the rear elbow/flattening the bat AS you stride to hit is an advanced move that can be worked on in time. Most great hitters' video clearly shows this tht move that this site named . There is time for that as they develop.

I would not vary much from lower body moves taught here and used by the pros. I have not seen very many kids that can stride long and still execute a good rotational swing. Arod and others can I agree.