Posted by: adam (imirish62@yahoo.com) on Fri Apr 24 16:50:57 2009

> > I've been playing baseball my entire life and just recently converted to fast pitch softball. I'm 5'11 180lbs and I have pretty significant muscle strength but am hardly hitting for power come game time. I feel as if I should be hitting the ball a lot further than I should.
> >
> > I have two questions,
> >
> > 1. I'm hitting a lot of swings off the handle of the bat, and I mean a lot. It's getting to the point where the entire area between my pointer finger and thumb is swollen and black and blue after every practice/game. I'm wondering what is wrong with my mechanics that's allowing me to do this?
> >
> > 2. Also, does anyone have any suggestions on what I should change in my stance/swing while playing fast pitch softball? I'm getting the impression that my swing is too long.
> >
> > Thank you, any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> You can get a thumb jammer at many hitting places or online. Josh Hamilton was wearing one in the home run derby. They are under $10. This stops the bruising in the area you mentioned.
>
> Getting jammed is always the result of not getting the bat head around soon enough. Without seeing your swing, it may be the result of continuing to drift towards the pitch. Your front side leg may not be firm enough and your upper body continues to drift into the pitch as you are swinging. Your hand path may be towards the pitcher and not circular. You may be extending your rear elbow slot or your arms inappropriately out over the plat and thus putting the bat head outside the ball. You may not be flexible enough to rotate around on the pitch. It may be a combination of these things but you have to figure out why your bathead isn't coming around soon enough. I would also suggest buying the hitting DVD on this web site and studying some of the hitting clips of good hitters and comparing these to yourself.


Thank you. I'm pretty sure it's the rear elbow slot thing but I'm going to take a video this weekend.