Posted by: Teacherman () on Tue May 18 08:02:02 2004

Hi All
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> Teacherman’s reply is flawed and misleading. During Sheffield’s pre-launch movements, the bat-head arcs upward 90+degrees before the back-elbow begins to lower. The “reactionary” force he refers to is actually torque being applied. The bat-head will have swept behind his head and well into the swing plane by the time the elbow lowers to the slot position.
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> The lowering of the elbow causes the top-hand to circle around the bottom-hand (THT). Try it yourself. Remember, if you start with the bat cocked forward toward the pitcher, you must also roll the top-wrist to sweep the bat behind your head and into the swing plane as it accelerates back.
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> THT is also being applied by the push/pull action of the hands ‘before’ the elbow starts to lower. Look at the Bonds clip (second row, right) at: http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/swings.html. Note that the bat-head is being accelerated back in frames 5,6,7 and 8 by my count (I get no frame count with the video). This is before the elbow begins to drop. --- There is even greater bat-head movement before the elbow lowers in Sheffield’s pre-launch movements.
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> Jack Mankin
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>

As owner of this site and head guru of this site I expect a better answer to my questions. You continue to use Sheffield's prelaunch movement as proof of something you call an absolute when in fact, Sheffield and a handful of others are the only ones that do what he does. How can that be an absolute???

Also, in that Bonds clip the first movement of the bat head back toward the catcher coincides with the first move of his body. What appears to be the first movement of the bat is actually his head lowering as a result of his stride. That movement is very slight. The first significant movement coincides with significant body loading and unloading. Part of the bow. The movement of the bathead at this point is reactionary.

Any response to my suggestion that you try to swing and not use tht and watch what the bat does? You know the slightest movement of the body will show a large movement of the barrel.