Posted by: Chuck () on Thu Sep 29 17:34:05 2005

Jim I'm not Jack but I'll tell you this. those little league coaches of your sons are right. The bat will square up with the ball automatically as long as the hands straighten out (horizontallly) when contact is made. You must understand that when the bat is travelling towards the ball the hands are also tilting, (or at least they should be) they are not just going straight down at the ball when the bat reaches the contact point the hands being no horizontal should begin to apply the tophand bottom hand torque to the ball.

So don't be so surprised that your son is succeeding that is how a baseball bat is suppose to be swung. This provides a good balance between power and efficiency. In baseball you need balance. If you just try to put all your body power into the swing you lose precision, yet if you just look to stick you bat out and make contact you lose power, there needs to be balance between the two, and I think that this website focuses to much on the power and the speed of the swing, and not enough on the accuracy and precision of the swing. Then again I guess thats why it's called batspeed.com

The thing that you saw with Pujols is quite common among Major League Homerun Hitters. It's called a "homerun swing".

Pujols starts his actually swing with his hands going down towards the ball (Like most Major Leaguers do) but as his hands are traveling downward his hands are tilting alot more, so when he reaches the contact point instead of the knob of the bat facing in an angle parallel to the ground (that of a high average hitter)Pujols' bat knob was actually facing up slightly. So even though his hands went down the actual bathead went up because of the extra tilt he put on his as they were traveling down to hit the ball. It's kind of weird when you think about it. But if you go take a close look at it you'll see what I mean.

I sum it up like this, if you want to hit the ball on the ground, don't tilt the bat as it goes downward. If you want to hit the ball "level" then tilt the bat "level", and if you want to hit the ball up tilt the bat so that the knob it pointed up slightly.

I'm actually a highschool ballplayer. I made second team all state (Colorado) in my freshmen year batting .637 4HR 30 RBI and 42SB (lead state) My highschool caoch really doesn't know how to teach hitting so I do alot of my own research on hitting and mechanics. I like alot of what this website has to offer but I just don't agree with the whole circular handpath theory.