Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Sun Jun 24 10:49:33 2001

>>> is Mr Mankin saying that weight should be kept on the back leg instead of transfered forward? Is it better to "squish the bug" and rotate on the ball of your back foot, or should the back foot be in a position where the toe is pointing to the ground and the heel is pointin <<<

Hi Jeff

I have never been a fan of the "squish the bug" cue and certainly do not believe a batter should rotate on the back foot. But neither do I believe that a forward weight shift is necessary for the "back foot be in a position where the toe is pointing to the ground." A batter can rotate around a stationary axis (as I outlined in the post below) and still have the weight on the back toe become light and even slide forward.

Whenever the back hip moves toward the pitcher, either from weight shift (back to center) or rotation around a stationary axis (the spine), the back foot will tend to be pulled upon to the toe. As I pointed out below, if the batter rotates on the back foot, the back hip does not come forward and weight stays on the ball of the foot.

There is another force at work that causes the weight on the back toe to become light or even come off the ground. The momentum of the bat after passing the contact zone is directed somewhere in the general direction of the pitcher. After the back arm teaches full extension and the bat-head is sweeping past the pitcher, that momentum exerts a strong forward pull through the arms on the batter's body. And as I stated earlier, the weight on the back toe then becomes much lighter.


>>>The stride and weight shift segment is completed before the swing is initiated. Or, in other words, the forward movement of the body’s center of mass comes to a stop (or near stop) before rotation starts.

I think the problem you are having is in defining or visualizing the axis of rotation. For a batter to have equal weight on both feet as he rotates, his axis of rotation would need to be vertical and even between the two feet. But to allow the swing plane to be more inline with the ball’s path (10 to 15 degrees downward), most batters will tilt their axis a few degrees away from the pitcher. This leaning of the body slightly away from the pitcher will shift more weight to the back foot. But the batter will rotate around a stationary axis (the spine).

For a batter to “spin on the back foot,” the axis of rotation would not be the center of the body. The axis would need to be from the back-foot and up somewhere through the body (not the spine or center of the body). Although the better hitters initiate the swing with more weight on the back-foot, their tilted axis will be from “down through the head and spine, out the butt and into 6 ft of concrete.” --- I think that is the way I phrased it before.

So, part of "keep your weight back" requires not letting the axis drift back to vertical. <<<

Jack Mankin