Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Fri Jun 8 09:06:46 2001

In reading the Charlie Lau school of thought much is said about hitting the ball slightly downwards to create backspin. In your video you don't discuss this at all...what are your thoughts on this and is there a different technique needed to achieve backspin when swinging with rotational mechanics?
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> Hello
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> Backspin is not a desirable thing in hitting. I don't know how this one got started. Backspin slows the ball down. Some backspin is inevitable, but I don't know why people would try to stimulate it. Slowly spinning balls go the farthest. That is simple physics.
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> Golfers know this. They plan on creating a lot of backspin with iron shots near the green so the ball will stop. Every so often, they must hit on from long grass, which sucks the backspin off the ball as it comes off the club. They call these "fliers" because with little or no spin, they don't know how far they will go. Sometimes, they go 40-50 yards farther than a similar shot with no grass sucking the spin off the ball.
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> I don't know how the backspin thing got started in baseball. I suspect some pro hitting coach was looking for an image and saw the fast wrist and hand action of golfers or tennis players or some odd thing and thought it would be keep his job safer if he invented some mysterious attribute for backspin. Give them something to talk about.
> Backspin is jargon, empty calorie talk from the mystical pro gurus. It probably isn't good for you and can't be created on purpose anyway.
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> Melvin
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Melvin-
Good point. Hitting the ball right on the nose will create a knuckle ball effect, not backspin. Incidental backspin ( a slow spin like a golf drive) will happen if you crush the ball just below center. This will help the ball carry. But that is not the same as loading the ball up with spin like a 9 iron to the green.
Also, topspin is not a great thing in baseball usually. It can turn a popup into a Texas leaguer, or get a hard grounder to jump through the infield, but generally it takes distance off the ball. It is also ususally caused by premature rolling of the wrists - too much top hand too soon.
Maybe the backspin thing started as a 'cure' for the topspin/tophand blues? Who knows...
I do associate the concept with the Charlie Lau school of hard ground balls through the carpetted infield. Is that where this stuff started??