Posted by: TARatko () on Wed Jul 11 06:19:38 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.
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> TAR,
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> 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.
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> Do these balls hit near the plate (inside piters mound distance) or out further? This can make a difference about whats causing it.
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> 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.
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> 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
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> Hope this helps
> Joe A.
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Joe A.:

I may not have been clear in my points. I agree with you that putting the ball in play hard, to all fields, is the key issue here. I was not advocating hitting a ground ball in a particular spot - rather, I was advocating thinking about hitting it hard up the middle. To do this then requires a fundamentally sound swing that will also result in line drives on the appropriate pitch. I respectfully disagree that a ground ball to the first base side is automatically a "late" swing. Might it not be an outside pitch that the hitter goes with? In this day of the aluminum war club at the youth, HS, and collegiate levels, "swinging late" is not penalized as it is in the majors with wood. Further, sometimes (eg, H&R situations) you must hit the ball on the ground to the right side to protect and advance the runner. Bat control is what it's about - in the context of proper swing mechanics, so, yes, IMHO you can manipulate the bat high low, outside, inside to get the needed result. A true hitter can do all those things well, plus bunt for hit or sacrifice. Editorially, I think some folks have forgotten the origins and strategies that make this game what it is - we need to get back to that and teach the fundamentals.

Respectfully,

TAR