Posted by: Tony D. (tony_desantiago@hotmail.com) on Mon Jun 19 20:58:54 2006

Early swing:

Jima,

I went round and round with this for awhile with my now 15 year old boy and by accident we stumbled accross a fix. My son had a J.V. High School Coach, who I think doesn't understand rotational mechanics, accidentally helped my son with some of his early swing problems (turning on the ball foul) by teaching him how to hit opposite field. He talked allot about location of a pitch and waiting for it to get deeper in the box in order to hit opposite field. Although he used terms like "throw the hands" (which my son has respectfully learned not to listen to) and such, teaching him how to let the ball get deeper, especially with the slower pitches ended up helping him understand the effects of the balls location at contact (deeper in the box equals opposite field). He knows now that he's fast enough to pull the trigger whenever he wants and depending on location of the ball he can put it where he wants. (well almost where he wants..ha..) His power is most definitely pull field but if he's having trouble with junk he now confidently knows he can slow it down and pull the trigger at the last second and at least have a hard shot in the opposite fields. Oh, he never seemed to have trouble with fast pitchers, only slow junk and/or arching curves.

Note 1: as I pitch to him and while the ball is in the air I'm reminding him by saying, "hold it, hold it........". Meaning wait for it to get closer/deeper.

Note 2: This has also helped him read the pitches as they're coming out of my hand and towards him because I pitch to him with a varity of different pitches (change-up, curve, knuckle, slider, and fastball) I try my best to screw him up and at times I have to let him know what's coming but he has gotten better at figuring it out on his own. He's learning!


I hope this helps,

Good luck!