Posted by: () on Fri Jul 23 07:35:39 2004

Hi All,
> >
> > Once again, grc has displayed his wisdom by offering all of us a proverbial nugget that we should listen to:
> >
> > "has any one ever stopped to think that MAYBE there are other factors besides mechanics, such as some hitters having a better sense of timing than other hitters?" (grc).
> >
> > As Mike Epstein says, "timing is everything," and I think Jack Mankin would also agree.


> >
> > BHL
>
> And this, from the slow pitch softball player, who never played baseball, who can pull every pitch, and therefore thinks all baseball players should do it, because the fence is shorter to their pull field???????.......Tell me BHL, just what do you know about timing???????????????

grc,

You hit the nail on the head when you said that mechanics are not the most important thing. They are third. But, I don’t think that timing can not be taught "as timing."

Timing is developed from where the batter perceives the "point of contact" to be. Many players have a "point of contact” that is too deep in the contact area (closer to the catcher). This would be in front of the batter. This happens because in many of the drills such as soft toss and T drills tossers throw the ball to a place in front of the batter, or the T is placed in front of the player rather then a few inches in front of the batters forward hip. As a result, they time their swing to hit the ball in that place. It's the wrong place so it hurts their hitting against live pitching.

Once a player internalizes where the contact point is, practice will allow them to develop the timing to hit the ball there. The will develop on its own with practice. I don’t think you can teach it.

L. L.