Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Wed Jun 27 06:04:30 2001

jack.....roby made the following post, and then came you-know-who.....but i think the post merits your comments.....""Bonds is a student who never stops learning," says Jaramillo. Barry told Rick Sutcliffe that he's learned to keep his upper half still, generate the thrust in his lower half, then throw his hands at the ball as if he's hitting a nail with a hammer."............now, jack, i know you generally don't like the cue of "throwing your hands at the ball", and i don't either...but....i find it hard to argue with bonds....how about you?.....respectfully, grc......>>>>Clear the hips and throw the hands,I have mentioned it numerous times,that Palmeiro said this.I used open the hips and throw the hands.I think there is some good thoughts we might pull from this.!st you feel that throe the hands lends to linear actions but should'nt.The key might not be the shoulders but rather the hips for some.If a hitter is linear I believe he does not rotate his hips well and he has a forward moving axis,there by having shoulders moving forward along with some turn and hands moving forward with some late torque.Now with the Bonds Idea we know his lower thrust is circular hips on a [stationary axis]when the lower goes circular then its easy for the shoulders to go circular and the throwing of the hands for him I think may be to speed things up but mainly it is the feel of [torque].So for many throwing the hands is thought of as linear but those who are circular hitters just throw out the middle step of shoulder turn in thoughts yet it is definitely there in actions and think open and throw,or Turn and torque.

If you do a truly rotational swing the hands/bat get thrown out of the shoulder rotation into contact. I've had it happen. I didn't even feel it - the bat just flies into the ball. Its like twirling a rock on the end of a string and as it comes around, letting go of the string - the rock flies out of the circle (tangential to string at release point) --- so do the hands/bat fly out of the circular hand path /shoulder rotation into contact.
It's not efficient to push both hands instead of circular hand path. It's not efficient to throw the hands out of the chp early, then swing into the ball - casting, etc.
But when released into contact, it is pure power.
One element of confusion: if the hook at the end of chp/bottom hand torque adds batspeed, wouldn't throwing the hands at the ball eliminate bht? can these be reconciled?????