Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Sat Jun 25 18:19:17 2005

I think describing axis of rotation on video is extremely subjective and complex which will not stop me from opining,however,feel free to ignore.

I personally have/would describe the desired rotation as more around the front hip during the actual firing of the bathead ("unloading") which might be the last 2 or 3 frames (30 fps) going into/through contact.The advantage of this non-centered axis is that the body can then send momentum referentially/efficiently UP to create more/better bathead acceleration.

Bagwell and Bonds do tend to lean the axis back more than many.Aaron would be very much more upright for example,save that analysis for another time.

But to just stick to Bagwell and the youthbaseball clips,I would say look at BOTH Bagwell clips over and over,especially looking at hip action/"bow-arch"/"pelvic projection".

Notice that the center of gravity/belt goes UP the last 2-3 frames.

Now,look particularly at the Bagwell clip from the front view (second Bagwell clip) and watch the white belt loops on the last three frames ending just after contact.The white belt loop over the front hip goes mainly up as opposed to spinning open more while the loop over the back hip comes more around AND up.

During these last 2 frames or so as the center goes UP, the front leg may indeed straighten and give the appearance of driving the front hip socket back,but I would say more accurately that the untwisting/unloading is already going up the torso and this is
pulling the front leg straight while the center of gravity is staying forward and going up. I would speculate that the axis must be more toward the front hip than centered to permit
this.

Again,use his belt (black belt/white loops) as a landmark on the front view to estimate where axis might be when approaching/making contact.

Again,very subjective/hard to objectively demonstrate,as is "weathervaning"-another great area of controversy.If axis doesn't keep you busy,I would say Bagwell also makes a typical posture adjustment to get up for the high ball in this second/front clip which includes getting the lead arm more up off the chest (as well as more lead scap elevation and a number of total body associated last fraction of a second posture and weight shift adjustments-but still likely to be "best" felt in lead arm) which I would think of as weathervaning (Epstein term),but then there's a whole nother can of worms for when the axis dust settles.