Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Aug 2 01:12:45 2005

>>> I disagree. How many times do you see contact made while still in the L? We are talking timing and contact is usually made between the L and reaching full extension.

Rotational momentum send the bat around and forward. As the hitter makes the turn (swings) the knob turns back towards the mass and the bat head accelerates around and forward.

They make contact between the L and the process of gaining extension, not usually at full extension. <<<

Hi Shawn

I found while charting swings that the only accurate way to tell the position of the back-elbow at contact was when viewing the swing directly across the plate. When I was taping games for my study, I noticed that when a home run was hit, they often followed it by showing an across-the-plate-view replay of the swing. After a couple of years, I had over a hundred of these swings on one tape. A good 75 percent of these across-the-plate views showed the back-elbow in the “L” position similar to the Sosa clip.

I agree that some hitters do have the back-arm more extended. And as grc pointed out, even with good rotational mechanics, the arm is also more extended when pulling the ball or hitting outside pitches. However, when most of the best hitters hit the ball to left or right center, the elbow is still back in the “L” position at contact.

Below are some clips (there are others to view) showing the across-the-plate-view. I would ask the reader to advance these clips frame-by-frame until the bat becomes perpendicular to the path of the incoming ball (hitting the ball more straightaway) or to contact (not the frame after contact where the ball has left the bat) --- The clips are there, you be the judge.

http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/bagwell1.mpeg
http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/Guerrero01.mpeg
http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/Bernie_Williams2.mpeg
http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/griffey_ken.mpeg
http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/mac01.mpeg

Jack Mankin