Posted by: tom.gurry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Mon Oct 8 08:41:19 2001

I saw a [still shot] at contact of #71.Bonds appeared to have his arms extended in a V.His shoulders and hips were not facing the pitcher yet but his fingers were definitely up and down.Also his barrel was slightly ahead of his hands,just a little ahead of perpendicular.I read he hit a tailing fb but do not know where he hit it.My guess is he hit it slightly to the pull side of center,also I think that what he may have originally saw early and committed to then changed a little causing little changes in his swing [programming] and he made the adjustments to his mechanics to get the fat part of bat on the ball.He had to extend to get the sinking pitch and he had to not keep rotating perfectly circular in order to not pull off the fading pitch,yet the early mechanics and the perfect collision was enough to carry out of park,how far did it go?Any other opinions?

RQL-

One of our local high schoolgrads had a good look at 71 and 72.A Redwood high(San Rafael,Ca.) grad is Parks catcher Kreuter.On 71 he called for an inside fastball and it faded across the plate.The ball was caught in the first row of the stands in right center(high up about 400 ft away)estimated at 424 ft.#72 was supposed to be a low inside slider,but was up over the plate.I was impressed at how he kept the hands back on that one.I have not seen any pictures at contact,unfortunately.There are two after contact,but I'm not sure whether this were 71 or 72.I always like to point out Barry's head/eye position.He keeps looking out instead of turning the head to follow the ball in.Turning the head can really slow down and mess up a swing.He is not trying to see the ball hit the bat.