Posted by: RQL () on Thu Dec 14 19:27:47 2000

rql....i know we have covered this from different angles, but if you will bear with me i would like your thoughts on the following.......as you know my son throws right/hits left & consequently has a tendency to be "linear"...that is, he draws in his hands/arms too much....so on an inside pitch, for example he will have a tendency to contact the ball too close to home plate, whereas if he had the ideal circular hand path he would contact the ball about 6 inches farther out in front of home plate................
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> >my question is this: suppose he were to practice 1000's of swings off tee/soft toss, making sure, of course that contact point was well out in front of plate......would you see this as a potential cure?......in other words, do you think that the linear swing is causing him to contact to close to the plate.....OR....could it be that it is the other way around, that him, for whatever reason having always contacted the inside pitch too close too the plate has resulted in the linear swing?......i hope my question makes sense.....respectfully, grc........ >>>>GRC,yes the tee is what did it for me but please be on the field where he can see where the ball goes and feel what he must do to get it there,keep it away from 2nd or over his head.I have an idea he will need to key in on the [barrel] to get it where he wants since this decides the angle and path of ball off the bat.There was always a nice smoothness to me ripping the ball right at the 2nd baseman and a little more getting out there to get it in the hole.Learn what it takes to get it there then look for it when 1st is holding the runner and 2nd comes in a little for the double play get the right pitch even crowd the plate a little more and its often a give me base hit and runner goes to 3rd if fast.I was always trying to hit the back of the ball at the pitcher so this created linear for me but gave me a good understanding of the angles of contact and where the ball goes.Does he hit mostly grounders or fly balls when he pulls or does he get jammed or does he mostly able to hit flares to opp. field for hits on the i.s. pitch.Make sure the soft toss is straight ahead and on field too,very important!!! p.s. he may need to key on pulling the lead shoulder back more since it may have stayed kind of closed more while inside outing the ball.Think pull think react inside some kind of cue that works ,Bagwell said he never had power till he started thinking power,he must be quicker than ever before to get out further than he ever has before,good luck.