Posted by: larry briody (ljbriody1@aol.com) on Thu Oct 4 18:56:28 2001

A few women's fastpitch thoughts.(I have started a thread here
because the September threads do not show in October,and the
October replies to September topics show only at the end of
September posts.)
>
> As Mark mentions,there are some long threads at the fastpitch
forum,but they can be hard to find/search.The most recent has to
do with the pitching distance-should international and 18u
Gold(different governing bodies) go to 43 ft which is the NCAA
pitching distance ?
>
> As your friend Wade Boggs has experienced,even he can only
wave at the ball going 70mph from a pitcher leaping off the 40 ft
pitching slab and releasing the ball around 35 ft away.In my
opinion,43 ft would be right for the top level women's game.This
is not likely to be the situation for most high school kids,and the
colleges are already at 43 ft.Both these situations give adequate
reaction time for a full swing.The best full swing is the
Mankin/Nyman/Epstein/baseball/rotational/lower body/whatever
you want to call it swing.
>
> For fastpitch you want to adjust by using as small as possible
a swing radius and a more upright axis of rotation.You need to
really work on crowding the plate and accentuating bottom hand
torque to keep the middle in ball fair and to be able to reach the
outside pitch.This is the best swing,but not well understood or
coached,and kids rarely put the time in necessary to maximize
their potential(in the fastpitch forum thread it was stated that
almost no one had seen a hitter work as much as pitchers
do-what's with that?)
>
> When coaches talk about taking the hands to the ball,they are
just doing the best they can to get some kind of
contact,preferably a grounder.It would be theoretically ok to
consciously teach a linear style for certain kids and
situations,but this is more likely to just confuse the muscle
memory and weaken the full swing,so mastering multiple
mechanical styles is rarely realistic.Unfortunately,most of these
linear approaches are just making a compromise for a possible
immediate gain that in the long run prevents kids reaching their
potential.They are also usually a poorly understood mixture of
styles that suboptimizes both.
>
> An example of a successful rotational swing(slow power hitter
type) is Cal's Veronica Nelson.No other hitters on the team can
protect her,unfortunately.Last years stats:BA .353,93BB,19
HR,150AB,.780 slugging,OBA .601.
y
> Tom- I have often and more so just recently wanted to
specifically ask you what you thought about many of your
observations and concerns regarding womens fast pitch
softball.I have often asked Mr. Mankin about various aspects of
hitting and the handling of coaches that preach a strange
combination of linear mechanics with a sprinkling of rotational
mechanics that results in a contact hitter .These coaches
wonder why the scores are so low.They want their players to use
-9 to -11 bats ,swing with their arms , practice 4or 5 months a
year and then they expect them to hit it in the gap.These coaches
want them to make contact out in front on the outside pitch.My
girl 's college coach filmed her and told her she was making
contact to close t o her body ,She told her to extend those arms
and to quit using tophand torque.This summer my girl hit.444 on
the women's class b national champions and her college coach
made the changes i referred to above without letting her hit the
way Mr. Mankin taught herand which she has been using for two
seasons.I thought I would send her Mike Epstein's tape because
the torque position doesn't utilize THT and maybe the coach
might allow this swing which as you know really emphasizes the
lower body mechanics.One of my questions to you is -Could a
person use M ike's lower body mechanics and Mr, Mankin's tht
and bht.? A question you
asked above about the practice time for pitchers vs hitters is a
fair one. My observations over the years are that the pitchers
work 9 to 10 months a year,many on a daily basis.Hitter's on the
other hand spend far less time without the benefit of good
instruction which causes frustration and produces contact
hitters.This is just my opinion,but I watch div 1 ,2and 3 softball
and they pretty much all swing the same way. Your concern
about the speed and distance also intrigues me.43 feet is a lot
fairer to the hitter than 40.Most pitchers tthat I see throw
between 58-64 and the 70 mph pitcher appears tobe the
exception ,at least on the east coast.But guess what?Most of the
girls still stand in the front of the box because they fear the
breaking ball more than the fast ball.A gain ,technique seems to
be the problem.Its hard to hit the off speed pitch when your
weight is moving forward.Thanks for writing the above post and I
look forward to reading yours and others thoughts .