Posted by: george stanley (saint_george13@yahoo.com) on Sat Apr 26 13:38:29 2008

> my 11 year old son has been travel ball for 3 years now and has been doing great . He is a right handed batter and tends to hit 20% to left 20% center & 60 % right . His power is strong to right and this does not change with a slower or faster pitcher it seems to always happen? So I do not think it has to do with a slow bat? He led his travel team in almost all hitting stats but I personaly feel that if he hits to left or center more he will even get more distance? Any thoughts ? He is 82 pounds 57 inches and strong he uses a big barrel 29.5 / 20.5 bat and we are in need of a new bat ?


hello dan!

without actually seeing your boy"s stance and swing, a few things concerning those aspects MAY BE the reason.. probably not.

one way to end up in RF all the time is implementing an extremely closed stance, whereby your stance is cocked around toward RF. your feet in a line at 2B man. barring that perhaps he is so far off the plate he is lunging at everthing outside, & ending up in RF.. none are very likely..i am sure those obvious batting stance blunders, if they did exist in the first place, were easily recognized & rectified by you previously.. so that leaves the weight of the bat..
young players are wonderfully beautiful, strong, fast growing diamonds of nature. they are producing testosterone in prodigious amounts. they are looking at the other young studs around them & try to figure out how they compare with the others. so it becomes very simple: "if joey can carry a 33oz. bat. since i'm bigger & badder & better than he is- i should carry a 35 oz. bat".. or something along those lines.
it is my humble opinion that probably 40% of the players in MLB should be using a lighter bat..less than 5% need a heavier bat..much greater percentages in minor league and amateur baseball, where the coaches have less control or influence than they should have... carrying a too heavy bat guarantees failure.. or greatly diminished batspeed resulting in a lesser success rate on getting to the ball on time. many young players would benefit from a lighter bat.. wwith certainty.
then there was the ultimate brickhead of all time, LANCE JOHNSON.
LANCE was a stick of a guy.. about 5"11, weighed about 155 punds. he might have fattened up to 165 or 170 by the end of his career... suffice it to say he was most kindly described as "thin". yet the thinnest guy in the league insisted on carrying the heaviest bat in the league.. 41, yes forty-one oz. i say again 41 o u n c e s. imagine the athletic ability he had in order to overcome this incredible self imposed handicap... so poorly advised. could have been henry aaron.i know you're not lance.

best of luck to your boy!