Posted by: Tom (tlosav@hotmail.com) on Wed Feb 22 18:33:25 2006

> >>> One drill I have used with success is putting the baseball on the T and have each batter hit the ball off the T with the knob of the bat. This requires great hand/eye coordination, gets the bottom hand to lead and promotes a more patient and confident swing. They have a great deal of trouble at first, but after they get the idea, things quickly improve. <<<
>
> Hi Tom
>
> Do you encourage your batters not to use the arms to accelerate the knob? I see no problem if the batter keeps the hands back and allows shoulder rotation to bring them in a circular path to contact. But, it would be counterproductive if it encourages the batter to use the arms to drive the knob leaving the bat-head trailing behind.
>
> Jack Mankin

This exercise is to develope the hands and their ability to find the baseball. Trigger is first; hands, stride and hips follow. I like to tell students that the left hand is like a karate chop towards the baseball. This gets the idea across of leading with the hands (pulling with the left / right hand batter). As the hands attack the baseball with the knob of the bat, the hips will turn. THEY HAVE TO TO HIT THE BALL! "Belly button to pitcher, et. al."

This is not a completed swing. It stops as you hit the knob on the baseball and push/strike it off the T. There are many other ideas to complete the swing; but this is what has worked for me to teach focusing on the ball and getting the hands to lead. I alway try to separate the swing in segments before try to get kids to do a complete swing (unless they're just "THE NATURAL.")

With most student batters, it's not how technical you are, but how you can make it simple...Karate chop with the left hand, etc.

At this point, we will look at other aspects of the swing to be sure that the hips make a full turn to the pitcher and thed hands pronate after contact.

Good Luck...and I hope this clarifies ther drill.