Posted by: skip (piks 5 @ sbcglobal.net) on Thu Mar 29 07:59:00 2007

After and exhaustive 15 min study of miniature, grainy slow motion swings of great hitters on the net, I've come to the following conclusions:
1. Great MLB hitters do not use rearward-pull THT as described on this site. IMO they do torque the bathead rearward, but do it by brute musclular rotation of the hands as they collapse the rear elbow.
2. Then they us a CHP to accelerate the bathead and get to the zone on time.
3. Pros don't need to tug rearward for THT b/c they're so strong, gifted, and trained that the bat feels like a wilffle ball bat in their hands.
4. My own son, neither big nor strong, can "whip" [bad term, but can't think of another] a wiffle bat bat through a nice rotational swing w/out "tugging" rearward. But from what I've seen, with a real bat he absolutely needs a distinctive rearward tug to initiate and accelerate the inert bathead so it can come around the bend (CHP) and still be in the contact zone on time.(with, hopefully, more batspeed-at-contact than he used to have).

As pointed out on this site, you can't "whip" a pole, you can only whip a whip or a rope or towel, etc. But when an individual has a great strength to weight ratio advantage over a ridgid pole, "whipping" is a reasonable mental image/cue to describe how he can fling that pole through a range of motion. MLB hitters appear to whip the bat through the strike zone, but I don't think this analogy is of use to kids and highschoolers. They (or their batting coaches)need to think more in terms of pendulums, lever, tugs, etc., whatever (I'm making this up as I go along, but their might be a grain of truth in it.

Skip