Posted by: george stanley (saint_george13@yahoo.com) on Thu Sep 11 09:07:50 2008

BOB BRENLY,CUBS announcer during CUBS/REDS game sunday.. after RF BRUCE got hit on the hand & broke some fingers.."i don't understand how come so any hitters are getting hit on the hands these days.. hardly ever happended in years past."
REASON: an open stance with your hands showing to the pitcher means when an inside pitch is thrown, because of your balance, that is your weight is biased toward 3B (RH hitter)0B you cannot turn back toward the catcher & protect your hands with your back or front shoulder.. after you freeze for a moment, all you can do is lean back away from the pitch.. UNFORTUNATELY YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOUR HANDS HANGING OUT THERE IN THE WAY OF THE PITCH... BANG!! GONE FOR THE SEASON.
MLB hitters losing parts of a season in recent memory:
SAMMY SOSA, LYLE OVERBAY, ADAM KENNEDY,VLAD GUERRERO, DEREK LEE, KEVIN YOUKILIS,many others.. & a frighteningly large number of near-misses, where a hitter gets stung but does not incur an injury.. SOLUTION:
SAFETY FIRST!! PROTECT YOUR HANDS WITH A CLOSED STANCE & YOUR HANDS BACK BEHIND YOUR LEAD SHOULDER-HIDDEN FROM THE PITHER'S VIEW!! from this postition you can easily turn backward toward the catcher & take the pitch on your back rather tahn exposing your front side or your hands to the ball.. to say nothing of being able to genereate greater lower body torque & thus breater batspeed.
when you step up to the plate, you must be fearless!! but you must also protect yourself as best you can by implementing an unbiased straightaway centrally located position in relation to the plate , with a short-based closed stance with your hands back behind your front shoulder..always think of all the actions you implement then evaluste them by first asking yourself the question "am i putting myself in jeopardy with this stance?" then secondly "do these actions
in my stance diminish my batspeed?".. if they do, eliminate them!! if not, implement them.. that should be your mindset.
to have a different mindset is to ignore your basic mission, & will inevitably diminish your success rate.. forget about your comfort level,or what anyone may tell you is the right or wrong thing to do..
put them all to the test of the questions asked above..if they can pass, then the will be good things to implement.. if not, they will definitely end up hindering you.