Posted by: Mark (mjury@amgen.com) on Fri Jan 8 11:28:13 2010

Jack et al:

I was hoping you could clarify/verify something for me regarding the full unshrugging of the front shoulder to 105 degrees. I want to be sure I am explaining it correctly to my son.

At contact, when you say the front shoulder is at 105 degrees, what is the reference point? Is it 105 degrees from the fully shrugged position? Is it 105 degrees from where the shoulder was before the batter shrugged his front shoulder? I have been empasizing the latter with my son, and he finds/feels 105 degrees is too extreme and unnatural to have his should rotated that far at contact. The good thing is that it is forcing him to open his front side at contact, and it is also promoting a fuller rotation and follow through, which lines him up better at contact. The one downside seems to be that by unshrugging that far, there is a tendency for his head to pull off the ball, and he's now hitting a lot of fouls to the right (he a right handed batter)

To be more precise, if you look at the swing mechanics in the frame-by-frame cartoon on your site, I have been telling him to unshrug to the point that is shown in the frame after contact, where the lead shoulder really seems to be pushed back to the catcher. If the frame at contact shows the front shoulder at 105 degrees, then it would seem that it is 105 degrees from the shrugged position.

Thanks in advance.

Respectfully,

Mark