Posted by: Mark H. () on Sat Aug 25 21:00:04 2001

Because CONTACT, PUTTING THE BALL IN PLAY is infinately better than striking out!.. for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has played the game. Only in the game that has developed over the last 5 years do we see baseball where hitters aparently see themselves as failures if they don't hit the ball over the fence. I may be wrong in saying this and IU am humble enough to say so but I have come to believe that the batter is forced constantly to choose between contact and power. Contact at one end of the spectrum and power at the other end. Every big league player could contact the ball 100% of the time if they simply adopted a slightly modified game of "pepper" with the pitcher. I doubt they could hit 200 doing this however.
>
> I find it interesting that Williams, if he did say to "push the bat at the ball", was basically vidicating my observation in my thread below when I observed that some linear movement was necessary in order to provide an increased chance of contact and that the ball on the end of the string analogy that I gave presented a lesser chance of contact but indeed more bat speed.
>
>
> I've heard some people say (including Ted Williams) on 2 strikes to shorten up your stroke, try to go back up the middle with the ball and use more of a push swing. What I don't get is if that makes you hit better why not do that when the count is 0-0?
> > >
> > > It does'nt necessarily make you hit better it buys you some more time to be able to not give up on a curve that breaks over late for strike 3 Also back off the plate 3 inches helps not to get jammed on a heater inside when your a little defensive up there.It just helps to give you a better shot of getting the fat part of bat on the ball though maybe not as much batspeed.
> > It's kind of hard making adjustments after 2 strikes. That's why I try to keep my swing the same every time. If I expect a curve and he throws it right down there Ima swing normally. If the pitch fools me or breaks at the last minute, I'll just stick the bat out to get a piece of it, hopefully foul it off and get another chance. Or ifthe pitch is an inch off the plate I'm not taking chances so I try to get a piece of the ball. Otherwise I swing normally. That's my 2 strike approach. Sound good?

There is a great thread on this same subject over on FPF in the batting conference entitled, "Critiquing Swings". Here is the address. Go to the batting conference, go to the bottom of the batting conference and then look for this thread started 8-22-01.

http://compchat.com:8080/~1/login