Posted by: drluggo (drluggo@earthlink.net) on Mon Jul 10 06:38:07 2006

Jack,

Thanks for the info. I have reveiwed the clips and I am a little confused.

Are you advocating the first swing or the Pete Rose swing. When I look at the first batter I see him rotating his whole body prematurely just to get his hands out in front. While this may yield a good amount of power on the inside pitch, he will never be able to hit the ball to the opposite field and would have trouble on pitches from the center to the outside part of the plate. On the other hand, the Pete Rose swing exemplifies what I was trying to say in my original note. His swing is completely rotational AND you can see that the bottom hand is leading and pulling the top hand and subsequently the bat with the knob toward the pitcher. His swing is much more compact giving him the ability to make contact with pitches on any part of the plate and drive the ball to all fields (which he did over 4,000 times).

My goal is to completley change the way hitting is taught in my local little league. I am tired of hearing coaches and fathers yell little catch phrases at their kids when most of the kids have better swings than those who are trying to instruct them. I firmly believe that kids are getting not only overloaded with advice but overloaded with clearly wrong advice and I want to have a few distinct teaching points that have clear meaning to a nine year old and a method for enforcing these points via drills that help with muscle memory. When a kid gets to the plate in a game the only thing I want him to think about is "see the ball, hit the ball". The swing mechanics should be taught and enforced in drills only.

The reason I am trying to get an endorsement on the "drive the knob" theory is because I think it is a simple concept that makes sense to a nine year old and if it is taught the right way can be a very effective concept to "drive home".

Thanks,
Chris

> >>> Jack,
>
> I am a coach of youth baseball players and I have recently come upon your site. I am also an engineer and I think the concepts that you promote are very technically valid, however I am trying to find some way to translate these concepts to teachable methods. For example it does no good to tell a ten year old that he needs to do x-y-z in order to generate more torque, etc... They have a limited attention span and I have found that a few concise pointers will go a long way in improving the swing of a player at this age.
>
> Anyway, that is not the intent of this message. In reading through your articles, messages, etc. you seem to discount the "drive the knob" theory as more of a linear approach to hitting and I have to say that I disagree. I do not see any reason why this theory cannot be combined with the Circular Hand Path (CHP) logic using the principle that the path of the bat must follow the path of the hands. With the hands leading the bat in a circular path, the forces exterted by the rotation of the body and wrists will be transferred out to the bat at the time of maximum rotational speed.
>
> Centrifugal force will be maximized in much the same manner as casting a fishhing pole where the pole is rotated in a circular motion and the line receives the maximum force to be cast as far as possible.
>
> While I agree that instructing a child to drive his hands in a "choppping" motion or linear fashion would not yield the best results, it is not wrong to teach him to move his hands in a circular motion with the hands leading in front of the bat, hence "driving the knob"
>
> Your Thoughts?? <<<
>
> Hi Chris
>
> Welcome to the site. – You state, “While I agree that instructing a child to drive his hands in a "choppping" motion or linear fashion would not yield the best results, it is not wrong to teach him to move his hands in a circular motion with the hands leading in front of the bat, hence "driving the knob"
>
> It appears to me that the swing mechanics you would advocate in “driving the knob,” would be very different from the mechanics normally advocated with “knob to the ball.” I will place below a couple clips that show the difference.
>
> The first clip - http://webpages.charter.net/nickkio/HandstoBall/Linear05.mpg -exhibits the mechanics normally taught with “Knob to the Ball.” Note how the arm muscles are used to produce a linear (A to B) extension of the hands.
>
> The second clip - http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/Rose.mpeg – is an over-head shot of Pete Rose. Note that hands remain back (not extended away from the shoulder) and are rotated into a CHP.
>
> Jack Mankin