Posted by: MissouriDad (zach3737@aol.com) on Thu Dec 23 06:35:52 1999

Hi Mr. Missouri Dad:
What about a player's ability to create resistance? I agree there is more than just bat speed at play here..dog

Dog,
Exactly this resistance that you mention is the same as the force I'm talking about in my first post. Even though contact time is minimal, the resistance or force is present.
Thanks for the advice on the switch hitting. Chris, my son, played with it for a couple of winters, then finally took it up full time this past season. It was a struggle at first, and frustrating as heck in the first games (40?) but we could both see tremendous progress every day. Even now, in December, he's 300 percent better than he was at the end of summer ball (and that's with him being starting tailback on varsity football team). He's what I would call compitent, but when he moves back to natural side, right handed, he's just so much better. He hits the ball where it's pitched, good pop to all fields, can still turn on a 90 mph fast ball (thrown from a Jugs and radar checked) and he stays back really well. Change ups are no sweat, and bad curves are a peice of cake (you don't see many good curves around here). So when he hits that well right handed it sure makes left handed hitting look bad. He's not bad left handed though, he does all of the things I just mentioned just at an earlier stage in his developement. He just turned 16. I think he'll make it. You've said you think it's worth it. What's your gut feel for a kid with great mechanics, tremendous work ethic, heart as big as Missouri, but almost no natural ambidexterity. By the way he was just timed in the 60 at 6.5 by the high school coach, no kidding.