Posted by: s.winton (stwinton@netzero.net) on Wed Apr 19 10:09:41 2006

> Mike,
>
> My swing does the same thing. Sometimes I hit the ball and my back foot comes completely off the ground. (but I always stay balanced in my swing) What you're talking about is some very powerful rotationsl forces in the legs (and upper body). I have two words for you: Tee work. You should hit whiffle balls off of the tee and keep hitting them until you are able to make the ball jump off the bat with knuckle ball spin. Go to a field and hit off a tee with baseballs (hit against the field) Tee work, soft toss and live throwing about a 10000000x will make you a good hitter if you do it enough. Remember, Ted Williams once said that he hit until the blisters bleed... Perfect Practice Makes Perfect!!!

Instead of being aware of what your back foot looks like after the swing think about taking your back hip to the baseball and to contact.

Hitting knuckleballs is not the answer. If you have a full length cage set up the tee right down the middle, (like it’s a FB right down the middle) set it up to where you will need to make contact with the baseball 6 inches in front of where your stride foot lands. Hit backspin line-drives off the back netting of the cage, keep the contact off the top of the net, and the sides. Watch to see that you are not hooking or slicing contact (ball tailing one way or the other) I have found that players that can do this usually have a pretty good swing...those that can't usually can't because they come around the ball.

This is a challenge for most that have never done it before...most players that I find will struggle with this and we’ll start with the tee even with their front foot stride, gradually we will move it forward. Practicing off the tee is GREAT, provided that you know where to place the tee. 95% of the players that I see who have not received instruction about how to hit off the tee will set up the tee in an improper spot, thus the contact point grooved and ingrained is flawed…

Any thoughts?