Posted by: Giant Fan () on Sat Oct 27 09:06:45 2001

>>>Recently I responded to a post by saying " From what I think I gather from this dialog, the concern with "throwing the bathead" seems to twofold: (1) Throwing the bat should not result in the hand path deviating from it's natural "circular hand path". And I agree.
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> > (2) There seems to be a concern that thinking "throw the bat" that the hands will leap ahead of the hips, disrupting the "kinetic chain" of events. If this were the case, I too would be concerned. However, it's not exactly like you are going to throw the bathead while the lower body remains motionless. Once the stride has been completed and enertia has been overcome, whether you simply think "swing" (what else could you think)or you think "throw bat", hips, hands, everything is moving together more or less as a unit."
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> Since no one responded I assume that we are in agreement on this issue. But yet it seems like on the one hand you agree with my statement but on the other hand you sometimes seem to think that the hands will sort of take care of themselves if only one uses top hand torque. Maybe you are at long last reevaluating the role of the hands but you can't seem to find a way of making it fit in your model. <<<
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> Hi Fan
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> I do not understand your disagreement. I have always advocated keeping the hands back and allowing shoulder rotation to accelerate the hand-path. Your point (2) seems to support that position. So why do you think I need to “reevaluating the role of the hands?”
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> You stated, “Once the stride has been completed and enertia has been overcome” – Inertia of what has been overcome at stride completion? Rotation would have barely been started (much less finished). The bat-head is still back awaiting the swing. So what inertia has been overcome?
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> Jack Mankin
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"Inertia of what has been overcome at stride completion?" Answer: lower body movement. Of course, this conflicts with your position that a stride is nothing more than a timing mechanism. fact of the matter is, you can't simply hit fom the launch position without doing something to get the body moving. Even Nomar does a subtle inward turn, but the more you do something over and beyond an inward turn (e.g., a stride), the more you get the body in motion, overcoming inertia.

That's my short answer to your question & I made it short because we are getting sidetracked from the real issue at hand. Stride vs. no-stride can always be discussed more in detail in another thread.

The real issue is your vehement disagreement with the idea of "throwing the bat at the ball", even though there are major leaguers (who are not "linear") who apply this concept. I answered your question so why can't you answer mine? I repeat: "Once the stride has been completed and enertia has been overcome, whether you simply think "swing" (what else could you think)or you think "throw bat", hips, hands, everything is moving together more or less as a unit." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? And if you want, strike the "and enertia has been overcome" part so as to not get sidetracked.