Posted by: RQL () on Sun Oct 21 07:41:51 2001

if you look at his body ichiro has to be the
> thinnest pro in the bigs...and his arms are
> about as thick as the handel of his muzuno...
> tell me if im wrong but he seems to be very
> bottom hand dominate, and if you have ever
> talked to mr 8x batting champion T.G. he
> preaches bottom hand dominance and says
> his top hand plays back up and guides the bat
> threw the zone...now i have read alot of the
> things hear, mainy stuff about tourque and
> rotation, living in SD i have seen gwynn for
> over 10 years and i just dont see all the
> SUPER hand tourque preached here
> everyday...now all the clips and motioncapture
> here are taken from some allstar baseball
> players like SOSA and BIGMAC but how many
> of you are 6-2+ and 220lbs+...(even bonds
> bulked up to 230 lbs) and can really hit the ball
> 430+ feet??? not only do SOSA and BIGMAC
> fight for the homerun crown every year they
> strikeout 120+ times a year as well...no doubt
> because of the torque they apply to the bat
> makes it nearly impossable to properlay
> adjust or even adjust at all....any one see the
> clip of ichiro hitting the ball off the ground for a
> singel??? now dont tell me you CANT make
> adjustments during the pitch!!!! if i were to
> teach people how to hit i would look at guys
> who make contact rather than sluggers,
> especially kids...but i guess CONTACT doesnt
> put as much money in the pockett as teaching
> how to hit the ball farther and longer....

>>>Wow,you sounded kind of like me a couple of years ago when I irst came here.Let me say I played college at same time as Gwynn and we were mentoned together in a couple of magazines though we played on opp. sides of America,and Wade Boggs is a friend of mine ,so I'm partial to their style of hitting.Boggs and gwynn are linear much of the time so they hit up the middle to opp. field probably 2500 hits of their each3000+ hits.I thought Rose was as well solidifying the great contact hitters as linear but I found he was as rotational as anyone from the film that I saw.Ichiro is odd in his swing but he does often try to swing down and hit to opp. field but he can run like a deer.Something most humans can not do.How many infield hits and bunts would be taken away from Ichiro if he could not run so fast.Arizona's counsell seems to be linear yet I need to see my film of him slo to decide.Now he is on a tear right now but again he is very fast more important he is no standout normally over a career and what he brings to the table is speed ,hustle,defense,not great hitting.Others that I believe were successful in the bigs that were linear are Mickey Rivers,Ralph Garr but again they were fast.So I think that Boggs and Gwynn were freaks of nature on their consistency of hitting 200 line drives away from fielders so consistently.Now rotation is not for big guys if anything it allows the little guys compete.Take Giles ,leadoff for braves,very rotational did you see his homerun and double and they say he is lucky if he's 5'8".How about Garciaparra,Edmonds,Helton,J.D. Drew{who brok my college W.S. hr record]Not big guys,but putting up big numbers and doing it with avg.speed.Let me say that when I played I was told I was a great contact hitter but since I was a catcher I needed to hit for more power.Itaught myself by my senior year of college to pull the inside pitch midle in.I stayed linear on away pitches and some up the middle which I thought was keeping my b.a. up[404]But I started turning on the ball inside and though I did'nt know then, what I realized now,I was rotating on the ball, For the 1st time I was hitting double digit homers breaking school doubles records and becoming 1st team all american with Gwynn.Interesting was no homer went to center or opp.field all pulled which is the ones that I hit rotational on.I think this site is for helping kids get to the nxt level and not contact only.I hope what I teach is consistent hard contact.