Posted by: John D (John@Dresslar.com) on Tue Nov 8 15:19:52 2005

For starters, I'm not going to copy all the previous posts in this thread. It makes me dizzy to figure out who's "speaking" at each juncture.

But, I do think there's something in the notion of using gravity to help start the swing. As I tell kids, "Dusty Baker, a great hitting coach before he was a manager, says there are no basic rules of hitting but there are basic laws. Laws like laws of physics, laws of kinesiology, and the laws of gravity." (Actually, Dusty didn't list those laws, but I filled in the spaces there.)

One of the biggest problems young hitters have is the drop the bathead back toward the catcher when they take their stride, and then have to drag the bat up through the strike zone to hit any pitch above their waists. To help cure them of that, I implore them that "gravity is your friend" and to keep the bat upright until they actually start their swing, so the force of their launch can be aided by gravity pulling the bathead into the proper plane while they're simultaneously turning hips.