Posted by: Joe A. () on Sun Nov 26 06:03:49 2000

To all
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> Perhaps some aspect of the original post has been poorly comprehended.
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> I guess I will stand on the following, for whatever it matters to anyone:
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> I would support the emulation of an amateur swing that employs rotation, torque, a slight uspwing and unbroken wrists at contact over copying the swing of the higest-paid professional who relies on weight shift, whip-cracking, swinging down and throwing knobs, handles or whatever. Just so happens a great many of those desirable swings happen to be on television, although you can find them elsewhere.
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> I am also sure that there is wisdom in the original message. It would certainly be a bad idea to copy the swings of certain professionals. However, I must politely disagree with the assertion that it is a bad idea to emulate the the swings of the good ones.
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> HoffmanLa

HoffmanLa,

Thanks for your comments. An observation: Don't you have to know enough about the swing to decide which swing is a "good one?" And, if you do know enough to visually sort out the good swings from the bad swings, why do you need a pro model at all? You can coach from your own knowledge. (I re-wrote this a couple of times because I didn't want to sound like I was being sarcastic, so if I did..... I wasn't.)

One more point. In your post you mention something about supporting a hitting method that inculs an up-swing. Consider this: in order to have an up-swing wouldn't you have to start your swing with your hands below the plane of the ball at the point at which you would you would make contact?

If you agree with this, then if you assume a hip high pitch the batter would have to move their hands below the hip to swing up on it.

I think that the swing looks like an up swing because of the bat position at the end. But, I do not think this is true.

Try this. Take a bat and do a slow motion swing. Force the bat into a downward path of a few degrees. Now take the swing through the hitting area and complete it. You will notice that as the bat moves out of the hitting area the right hand (for right handed hitters) starts to rotate over the left hand and the left elbow starts to colapse to your side. These movements causes the bat to take an upward path no matter what the path of the bat was in the begining. As a result of seeing the bat rising at the end of the swing observes think the batter is swinging up.

Most hitters hold their hands at or around shoulder height. They would have to drop thier hands over 12 inches to swing up on a high strike to say nothing of a pitch below the waist.

If not then the hitters start with the bat above the plane of the swing, then swoop (swoop?) under the plane of the ball and upward at the end. This would be difficult to do on the highest strikes. Any thing waist high or below, fogidabodit. I dont see anyone doing this at any level.

I believe that all hitters hit down on the ball on every swing to varing degrees depending of the height of the pitch.

Well, what do you think?

Joe A.