Posted by: coach13 (halour@netscape.net) on Sun Jun 18 12:46:48 2006

> My 12 year old son has been hitting a lot of "dinky " ground balls for a few weeks now, and always seems to be "topping " the ball and not getting the good part of the bat on the ball. What is the easiest advice I can give him to help him understand and start hitting line drives again.
>
> Thanks

Hi Dave

Without more information I can not give a clear suggestion. There are several flaws in a swing that could cause this symptom. One of the most common for young hitters is rolling of the wrists at contact. This causes the bat to loop and hit the top of the ball with little power. The hands should go through the ball palm up with the top hand and palm down with the bottom hand. A bag, a tire, or even a garden hose are devices you can hit to try to get a lot of reps. to develop this technique.