Posted by: Jimmy () on Tue Jan 16 20:14:47 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? <<<
>
> Hi All
>
> Try not to be harsh with Jimmy for his opinion. After all, as the post below points out,
Bonds once held similar views.
>
> Jack Mankin
>
> > > Here is a story that I picked up from another site (I don't recall who posted it):
> > >
> > > "Always, when this conversation arises, I remember a story Don Slaught told me
about talking w/ Barry Bonds about his swing. Bonds said he "was hitting all right, but
didn't think he was swinging down sharply enough to contact." Slaught told him that in
fact, like all MLB hitters, he swung UP to contact. Bonds vehemently denied the possibility
of this. Slaught used RVP {Right View Pro} to convince Bonds, and later heard him walk up
to ARod at the All Star Game batting practice and say, "Alex, you know you don't swing
down to the ball, right?"
> > > ##

Jack,

Thanks Jack. That's my point. Take 50 MLB hitters and you'll see very similar swingpaths on video, but they all tried to do something different to get there.

Jimmy