Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Thu Sep 13 15:53:50 2001

Shawn et al-

I hope all is as well as possible with you and your loved ones in this difficult time.Baseball promises to be as good a diversion as possible when the time comes.

I still can't load the angelfire clips.

Reactive torque is often seen,but requires an understanding of how it is affected by the players way of adjusting to the pitch.Inside location and an upright axis of rotation accentuate toe drag.

Toe drag(reactive torque going down back leg as hips decelerate,continuing until hands cast away from axis of rotation)is more apparent the less weight the back foot bears and the more the hitter "turns on" the pitch(without letting the hands get away from the body).Maximum drag is seen for high inside balls where the player has to really turn to get the sweetspot on the inside location and where the axis has to stay more upright to match the plane of the pitch,for example the setpro clip of Piazza in the series in the "mccarver" thread-Forum1.000507.Even Sosa-who really leans the head back and down to create a rearward leaning axis thereby keeping weight on the back foot and preventing drag-will show some drag on the high inside cheese.

In general,the outside location has delayed(torso hooks up/hips decelerate later) and less "turn" and therefore less reactive drag.This can be seen on the Nomar(comparing inside-more drag/outside-less drag locations) clip at setpro Forum1,000394.

I am more and more interested in how players go about setting up their axis at launch/maintain axis until contact.Bonds talks about the importance of getting the body in the right position for a given pitch.When he misses one,he says he can mentally see where his body needed to be and the next time he sees that pitch he nails it.Often he gets it right the first time.He never forgets a pitch.Even started hitting the submariner in Colorado.

Jack is really on to something with top hand torque and the circular handpath as a simpler way of adjusting/covering the plate.In this case,the swing radius is set at launch(shorter and earlier for the inside stuff) and then stays circular until the bathead is fired as opposed to launching with a short swing radius and then letting the hands get away from the axis of rotation to get the sweetspot on the away pitch(linear mechanics/inside outing).With this more consistent/simpler adjustment and sequencing method,body positioning(posture) then becomes key to matching the location/timing of the pitch and can be focussed on better since overall motor programs are less variable.

Another variation of this mechanical approach(which limits variation of motor programs) is to stay off the plate and make everything a middle away pitch as in the case of Big Mac.This might limit vulnerability to the inside high cheese since you don't have to turn on it quite as much.