Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Mon Nov 19 20:07:29 2001

>>> Jack, thank you for answering my post on "Staying Inside The Ball". However, this brought up another question. After I read everything on this site and watched your video, I've been smokin' the ball. But after I read your theory about extending the lead arm back toward the cather I noticed that I have slight flexion in my lead arm and on an inside pitch I have even more flexion at contact. It looks something like Barry Bond's lead arm. I tried to fully extend my lead arm like you talk about in Frame #C Ready launch position, but I still have very slight flex and even more flex on inside pitches. Does this mean I have a strait hand path or do I need to keep my lead arm strait and get more rotation and swing earlier to hit that inside pitch? <<<

Hi Matt

Although most of the best players have a fairly straight arm at contact, there are also good hitters that have some flex in the lead-arm throughout the swing. You can maintain a circular hand-path as long as the flex you start with remains constant (or straightens) to contact. But if the elbow continues to flex (driving the elbow at the pitcher), it will result in a straighter hand-path.

In order to get good wood on the ball, all batters will need to have more flex in the lead-arm if they are jammed by the pitch. But the smaller arc radius of the hand-path results in less bat speed and most home runs hit with this swing are pulled.

Jack Mankin