Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatSpeed@aol.com) on Thu Sep 23 16:54:14 2004

>>> I don't mean to hijack this thread but my son is also having a problem releasing his hands/ bat head at the ball.

I don't know if Tony is seeing this in his son but when my son swings he looks as though he is leading the swing with his rear elbow. It appears that he is pulling the bat with his top hand into the pitch, the bat head stays back and he gets a late swing and release into the ball.

A lot of his balls are either weak grounders to 3rd/ SS or weak pop ups to 2nd base side.

I don't know if this is a good picture I've painted but any help is appreciated. <<<

Hi Jusris

You describe the problem well. The reason the back-elbow leads and slides inward toward the bellybutton is because these batters are “pulling the bat with the top hand into the pitch.” Hitters who pull (or hold) back with the top-hand and accelerate the bat-head instead of the knob do not exhibit this problem.

The way to solve “back-side dominance” problems is to make efficient use of the lead-side. The lead-side should not pull the hands (and knob of the bat) out toward the pitcher. For the bat-head to be accelerated around the swing-plane, the rotation of the lead-shoulder must pull the lead-hand (and knob) around toward third base as the top-hand pulls back and around toward first base during initiation. – Then the back-elbow will remain back in the slot (at the batter’s side) during rotation.

Jack Mankin