Posted by: Chris O'Leary (chris@chrisoleary.com) on Thu Jan 11 08:35:44 2007

"When my son hits line drives, they tend to die in the outfield, apparently due to backspin. His hardest hit balls tend to be hard grounders. Is there something in his mechanics that needs to be corrected so the line drive travel farther?"

If his balls are dying, then it's due to topspin rather than backspin. Topspin makes a curveball dive while backspin makes a ball carry. That means that he's hitting the ball just above the midline, which may mean that there's a problem with the plane of his swing.

Is he consciously trying to hit down on the ball?