Posted by: Craig Colby (ccolby@ipns.com) on Wed Jun 27 21:21:11 2001

Contributors said Ferroli's advice to move hands straight at the pitcher can't produce torque which would rotate the bat around a vertical axis situated between the hands. However . . .
Ferroli advises to hold the bat deep in the lower hand (wedged into the crotch between thumb and palm) and to hold the bat in the upper hand where the fingers meet the palm. The effect is to make the upper arm longer than the lower arm. Therefore driving both arms at the pitcher tends, especially as the bat passes the hitter's body, to rotate the bat about a vertical axis situated between the hands. This was not Ferroli's stated reason for holding the bat this way, but he might have stumbled upon the desired effect. OK, OK, it's probably true that the sooner torque is applied, the better. So consider...
Ferroli suggests the flat bat, i.e., the bat held with its long axis nearly parallel to the ground, with the barrel in its starting position lying behind the batter in roughly a line from pitcher to catcher. Bringing the bat forward from this position to a hitting position will unavoidably apply torque about the desired axis, beginning with the very initiation of the swing.
I haven't seen everything, by a long shot, but everybody I've seen who has switched to a Ferroli style immediately improved vastly.