Posted by: Bob () on Sun Nov 13 09:04:53 2005

A hitter starts off by having his shoulders perpendicular to the pitcher. At contact, his shoulders are now facing the pitcher. How did he end up in this position? Did he not rotate? To me, this linear thing is an expression that is being overused. I see what people call linear mechanics as hands extending away from the trunk of the body. How much should the hands separate from the trunk or if they even should, depending on pitch location. To me video shows that on middle to in pitches, there is not much separation if any in a lot of cases. The hands follow the same route as the shoulders which have to rotate in order to end up facing the pitcher. What is the great mystery here? I am willing to bet that the mechanics of players such as Ichiro and Michey Mantle for example would be very similar. The actual wording used to express verbal cues can obviously be very different than what is really happening. This doesn't mean they don't work.