Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Thu Dec 2 13:44:10 2004

>>> jack, if sufficient bat cock & inward turn does not automatically force the knob-to-the-catcher thing, what specific mental or physical technique do you suggest?.....it seems to me that it is mentally unnatural to move the knob toward the catcher....when a ball is coming from the pitcher, all the natural instincts are movements in the direction of the pitch, not the opposite direction...
if i was of the opinion that the hitter needed to make a CONSCIOUS effort to move the knob toward the pitcher, for a hitter new to this technique i would want him to establish that muscle memory of what i consider to be an unnatural act...the best way to establish that muscle memory would be for him to practice striding/hands back/inward turn with a conscious movement of the knob toward the catcher, over and over again....i would suppose that with enough repetitions over an appropriate length of time that the hitter could get in the habit of always initially moving the knob toward the pitcher without even thinking about it....
but i think the key, in the long run, is for the hitter to accomplish the knob-to-the-pitcher thing without having to think about it in the batter's box....eventually and hopefully the knob-to-the-pitcher thing would become an instinctive reaction....
but again, do you agree that initially the knob-to-the-pitcher thing is an unnatural instinctive reaction and that initially a conscious effort has to be made to accomplish this.....and what specific actions should the hitter take to practice this?.....respectfully, grc.... <<<

Hi Grc

Teaching batters the concept of accelerating the hands and knob toward the pitcher has stalled hitter’s progress for decades. Video analysis of the best hitters has forced the die-hard “knob-to-the-pitcher ” enthusiast to make many revisions. I understand that the new version of “knob-to-the-pitcher ” has the knob rotating not just extending, but we do not hit the ball with the knob.

In fact, the purpose of all good swing mechanics is to keep the knob back and accelerate the ‘bat-head’ around the entire swing plane. ‘Entire’ means the bat-head is first accelerated back toward the catcher then around toward the ball. --- This is the mental image of the swing a batter should have to develop good rotational transfer mechanics.

Jack Mankin