Posted by: () on Wed Jul 11 04:56:49 2001

I noticed my son is hitting alot of ground balls(hard) but ground balls. Apparentley the proper angle or swing is not correct. His swing appears to be downward. Should I lower his hands slightly below his chest in order to develope a level swing.
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> TJ: From your message I infer that you believe hitting hard ground balls is somehow a bad thing. IMHO that cannot be more wrong, and a reflection of what has become a growing cancer on the game. A hard ground ball, preferably hit straight up the middle, forces the defense to make two good plays - fielding and throwing - plus a quick decision as to which base to throw to. My 14U son trains with an old school collegiate coach, who has sent a great number of players to the pros and is a colleague and disciple of the great Gordie Gillespie. Tony constantly preaches taking the ball hard on the ground up the middle. His approach is that the good hitter hits down on the ball - then, if he makes a mistake, drops his hands, a hard line drive results, not a worthless fly ball. The essence of good hitting is to put the ball in play, hard, hitting it where it is pitched. Unfortunately, the game has become dominated by homerun thinking and the misleading and sadly mistaken concept that singles/doubles hitters are no longer of value. I will take good consistent hard line drive, opposite field gap hitters any day over those that hit towering flyballs and a HR every few games with intervening popups and flyouts.

TAR,

Where are these ground balls being hit? If a right handed batter hits the ball to the 1st base side, he may be hitting the ball late which is a more downward angle than later.

Do these balls hit near the plate (inside piters mound distance) or out further? This can make a difference about whats causing it.

Hitters, especialy young ones should try to get the bat on the ball hard. With the proper mechanics this should result in ground balls, line drives, pops and all the other types. They should go in all directions.

Trying to hit ground balls to a sepecific place is not good advice. It requires manipulating the bat to try and hit high, low, outside, inside pitches on the ground and to the same place. Kind of silly, when you think about it

If he is hitting almost all ground balls then he may not be droping his back elbow to his side and flattening his bat (not flat, but on an angle) before he starts his hands forward.

I have seen hitters who have a low crouching stance and when they start their swing they move to a more erect position, meaning they are rising. This could cause them to hit the top of the ball more often.

Hope this helps
Joe A.