Posted by: Dave P () on Tue Jan 16 11:11:43 2007

> To produce a line drive that has backspin on it, the barrel of the bat must not work from under the ball, it must work through the ball. A severe upward swing will produse a topspin (ground-balls), or backspin with too steep of a trajectory into the air (pop-ups). There is very small room for error in terms of quality contact with this approach. Do we really want to tell our players to try to have an upper-cut swing? Doesn't the swing flatten out on its own when quality contact is made out front?
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> Please respond
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> Jimmy

Jimmy

It is not an uppercut swing it is a swing that matches the ball trajectory. The ball trajectory is always DOWN. In your description the bat only crosses the ball trajectory which means you only hit the ball or you completely miss the ball (think of the letter X laid on its side, only one spot to make contact).

To maximize your success in timing the pitch and making solid contact wtih the ball the bat needs to be matching the ball trajectory. The actual error for contact in this scenario is less then with a flat swing or a downward swing. True if your bat is one inch too high or one inch too low you will hit a pop up or a ground ball but in the X scenario your bat has a timing error of less then 5 inches or about 1 mph.

What this means is if your judgement of speed (timing) is off by two mph you miss the ball. Can you judge the speed of the pitch by less then two mph regularly. I would rather have to adjust my swing by one inch over the length of the swing that has a 6-8 mph room for error.

Just my thoughts that are supported by many videos, scientific analysis, and personal analysis.

DAve P

PS Your statement is correct 'barrel of the bat must not work from under the ball, it must work through the ball.' and to go through it you should be matching the flight of the ball. It is easier to go through something if you are lined up to it.