Posted by: Henry () on Mon Dec 13 07:21:19 2004

>>> Jack says that Elliott could only bring his hands 4-5 inches from his shoulder...........well, in the Demo he did not even come that close. <<<
>
> That may very well have been the case at that time. As I pointed out above, that is one of the main reasons his bat speed was in the 70’s.
>
> John likes the Sosa style and starts with his hands 10 to 12 inches out in front of him. As he brings hands toward the shoulder, he is already accelerating the bat-head back toward the swing plane. Once the bat-head has sweep into the plane and the elbow is lowering to the slot, he wants his extended thumb to brush the shoulder. With these mechanics his bat speed is in the 90’s.
>
> Jack Mankin
> Jack I have A LOT of clips of Sosa, maybe more than I have of any other player.From what I see NONE of the hitters have their hands close to the shoulder. I have Renteria, Rodriguez, Bonds, Walker, Giambi, Piazza and oh yes I have many of Sosa.I have one I got from setpro years ago. I will use that one as an example since the chances are good that others may have the very same clip. In the first frameSosa starts his front foort lift and in the same frame his hands are about 10 inches from chest.At frame 10 he again starts front foot lift, hands still about same position but back elbow now raised (in the first 10 frames all he did was sort of start front foot lift but then returned the foot).Frames 11 through 22 his front leg moves forward , his upper body turns in and his hands are stil about the same distance from shoulder (actually at this point hands have dropped somewhat and are more in line with the armpit, not shoulder).By frame 27 the front foot and heel have landed, elbow now really high and now hands again in line with the shoulder. The view is somewhat obscurred but at this point the hands are still at least 4 or 8 inches from the shoulder.now the swing starts and hands still never close to shoulder.This is a typical Sosa swing and I know his swing very well, the only way his thumb could touch his shoulder would be if his thumb was about 10 inches long! I might also add that I have seen you refer to clips at other personal websites (Nikkio?)and these clips also do not indicate hand being close to shoulder. For that matter I'm not so sure that your own sketches indicate that either (but on that point I could be wrong).