Posted by: Chuck (Chuck10112@gmail.com) on Sun Aug 24 23:42:47 2008

I would actualy fall into the category of people that believe the swing is middle out not bottom up.

Anyway Jack although video analysis shows that the rotation of the hips isn't that of a revolving door you must agree that someone couldn't stand in the batters box forcefully rotate his back leg and still produce power.

The sideways hip thrust or slide or whatever you want to call it is what loads up the lower body. In this load position you will see that a hitter's front leg is bent and the front foot (right handed hitter) is pointed somewhere between first and second. The back leg will be in a collapsed position, so the back foot will still be parallel to the back of the line in the batters box and the knee will bent inward towards that ground because of the pull caused by the hip slide.

Every sinlge Major League players I've seen hit (Pujols, Ramirez, A-Rod, Griffey, Braun, Wright, Sizemore, Ortiz, Ichiro etc.) reaches this position. And it is this position, caused by the hip slide, that allows great hitters to generate power at the plate.

When you think about it the front leg does practically all the work. As weight shift occurs the front leg extends redirecting the momentum created during the weight shift pushing the front hip back, the back side simply goes along with the ride as its pulled forward.

I can compare it to a pole vaulter. When a pole vaulter runs forward he creates momentum (like that of a hip slide) when he stabs his pole into the ground the forward momentum is redirected and the pole vaulter is simply along for the ride from this point (similar to the front leg pushing the forward moving hips back in an arc the back side is just along for the ride)