Posted by: RQL () on Sun May 27 08:42:50 2001

I saw a clip of yankee center fielder hitting a homerun against pedro martinez may 24 on ESPN.It was an inside fb on Bernie and he was about to be jammed but I could see a distinct movement by him to draw his hands in tight to his body with a tight shoulder turn ,not a fluid swing with extension.It was the difference however in a broken bat and a H.R.Last year we talked about a similar swing at setpro on Mike Piazza H.R. in W.S. did anyone notice it.
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> I was at work so I didn't see it. And being from Boston, I didn't want to watch the highlights later....
> Besides pulling his hands in (sacrificing extension but getting an increase in the tightening of the circular hand path at contact, did he keep his rotation around his spine or did he offset rotation to the back hip to clear out more room (clear out his front hip)? What other adjustments did he make?
> MD,His upper body had some backward lean to it ,but still carried a tight rotation.You could see the difference from a regular swing.I think their is more push back with the front hip to clear the way for the shoulders and hips to pullin more or back.I can remember doing this sometimes to prevent being jammed.Remember as you get older and stronger you do not need to do everything perfect as far as batspeed to hit a H.R.However you must have the fat part of the bat on the ball and be pretty close with swing plane and trajectory.Think maybe get back inside and get it as opposed to go out and get it on inside corner stuff otherwise you well often hook it foul.