Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Mon Jul 10 14:15:42 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 <<<

Hi Chris

You state, “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.” – I certainly would not recommend the mechanics exhibited in the “first swing” That is the straighter hand-path you normally see with batters taught to “drive the knob at the pitcher.”

I have always maintained that in order to generate a productive circular hand-path (CHP), the batter’s first movement of his hands (and knob) must ‘not’ be directed toward the pitcher (parallel with the incoming ball). As he initiates his swing, the first movement of his hands (and knob) must be directed across (or perpendicular to) the flight of the incoming ball. This will occur if he keeps his lead-arm back close to his body and allows shoulder rotation to rotate his hands into a CHP.

Note in the Rose clip ( http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/mpg/Rose.mpeg ) that his hands are on the batter’s box line. His hands do not drive the knob down that line at the pitcher. His hands are first arcing toward the first base dugout. If this clip showed the beginning (initiation) of his swing, it would show his hands starting farther back behind his head and thus being accelerated even more perpendicular to that line.

Jack Mankin