Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Dec 7 18:14:20 2004

Hi All

In the late 1980’s I purchased one of the first VCR’s that had frame-by-frame capabilities. I immediately saw it would be a great tool for studying the mechanics of the baseball swing and started taping Major League games from TV broadcasts.

When I first studied each frame of the swing, I realized I did not have a clue what I was looking for, or what constituted good or poor mechanics. I decided the best way to learn would be to take notes on the differences I saw between the great hitters and average hitters.

After a couple of weeks or so, I reviewed my notes and found a disturbing pattern in my writing. The more I read the more it become apparent that I was trying to make what I saw conform to my long held batting principles. It also became apparent that if I was to make a serious study of the swing, I must record my observations with a completely open mind.

When I started my study, I made a sign and placed it over my desk. It read " Have no preconceived theory, report only what you observe." Mike Epstein makes the point well with his question, “Do we actually teach what we see.” – I am going to discuss a couple of clips from Nick’s site regarding the “Torque vs Crack of the Whip controversy. You can draw your own conclusions, I only asked that you watch with an open mind.

The first clip (http://webpages.charter.net/nickkio/HandPath/) (The SHP clip) is of a test I ran to show the bat’s reaction to being accelerated from a straighter hand-path where the accelerating force is applied at a single point (no torque applied by the hands).

The second clip (http://webpages.charter.net/nickkio/HandstoBall/Linear05.mpg ) is of a batter extending his hands (applying force at two points on the handle) in basically the same path as the test I ran.

The “Crack of the Whip” theory would say that torque was not a factor. That once the hands slowed near full extension, just like a whip, the bat-head comes flying around. Forces applied at the handle by the hands had no roll in accelerating the bat-head. --- The opposing view is that torque applied at the handle from the top-hand being extended past the slower moving bottom hand is what caused the bat-head to come around.

Study the clips closely and draw your own conclusions.

Jack Mankin
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Because the hand-path clips were taken down for a couple days, I gave a short discription of them below.

>> I just tried the (http://webpages.charter.net/nickkio/HandstoBall/Linear05.mpg) clip and it is still up. However, the (http://webpages.charter.net/nickkio/HandPath/) clips have been taken down. They were up when I made the post. I suppose Nick has his reasons for deleting them at this time.

The deleted clips were from our Instructional Video. The first showed how a circular force (CHP) applied at a single point causes the bat-head to accelerate in the swing plane. Some now refer to this as a “double-pendulum” effect.

The second clip shows that if the single point is accelerated in a straighter path (linear), there is little to no angular bat-head acceleration from a “whip” or a “double-pendulum” effect. <<

As of yet, not one dissenter has declared whether or not they think the bat speed generated in “straighter hand-path” clip resulted from the “Crack of the Whip” theory or torque applied at the handle.

Jack Mankin