Posted by: sjd () on Mon Aug 22 11:10:06 2005

Top or bottom spin would be theoretically easier to impart IF you had a nice flat swing, or your swing angled UPWARDS straight towards the pitcher. That is, with Jack's pie plate analogy (the plate describing the swing plane), the plate is either flat or flat & slightly tilted upwards towards the pitcher.

When you swing along the plane shown by The Final Arc II, the swing plane is angled diagonally across the strike zone, making it even more difficult to purposefully impart back or top spin.

I agree with JAC: why would you bother with spin? Certainly, for Little League players, the goal of getting a solid hit with maximum batspeed & correct bat plane position should put you at the top of your class, without finicking over if the bat was slightly above or under the ball's center axis.

I'd be interested if anybody in the majors REALLY does this, apart from offering gratuitous soundbytes on the idea. With less than 1/2 a second to solidly hit the ball, is this feasible at the pro level?

I think backspin's important for a long throw, & topspin critical in tennis. But I just can't see either one being worth the effort & the K's when applied to hitting, IMHO.

sjd

> It isn't backspin that I think is overrated, it is the ability of Bob to learn how to go from topspin line drives to backspin line drives. I am guessing that Bob's level of development is nowhere near a high level. Who,with good stats, would be dissatisfied with any kind of line drive! Based on this assumption about Bob's ability I believe he has unrealistic expectatioons about what backspin line drives will do for his hitting. My hitting philosophy for Bob is "kiss" (keep it simple stupid). Learn the basics of good hitting and he may become good enough to hit the ball consistently hard and not give a damn what kind of spin the ball has. I have some difficulties with the advise to hit the ball three-fourths of an inch below center that I won't go into, except to mention that it has been deduced that hitters lose sight of a pitched ball when it is ten feet from them. At that point instinct and experience take over and fine mental measurements are useless.