Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Wed Feb 14 00:01:26 2001

>>>My son plays little league and recently has been suffering from excruciating vibration on his lower batting hand. It has gotten so bad that it has broken the pinkie nail. He is now starting to hesitate when he bats and his performance is becoming affected. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. <<<

Hi Daniel

Without actually seeing your son’s swing, I can only give you my best guess. It could be that he is rolling his wrist too early in the swing. This would mean his hands are not in a good position to make solid contact. It would also be hard to make consistent contact with the meat part of the bat, which causes bad vibrations.

The wrist can prematurely roll if the batter does not have enough shoulder rotation in his swing. Or, in other words, he may be casting his arms out too wide. Also, allowing the lead elbow to point downward will cause the wrist to roll too soon. The lead elbow should be pointing into the plane of the swing until contact.

Daniel, he may have some other mechanical problem, but that is my best guess without a video of his swing.

Jack Mankin