Posted by: Stever R () on Wed Jan 12 18:31:14 2000

I may get my head bit off hear, won't be the first time. I say this because I don't have any proof. Nor do I know exactly what Steve R is looking at or thinking. If you're asking how the majority of good hitters are holding the bat at or before contact I'd say it's in the fingers. If you were looking at how they werte holding the bat while semi-relaxed waiting for the pitch you may see it touching the palm. Is that where you are basing your answer from Steve R? The way they hold it while waiting or loading? If you saw all those hhitters with the bat in their palm of their top hand at contact, their fingers would appear to be wrapped all the way around to their palm (like a throwing a punch to hit someone with the flat part of the area between the second and third knuckle), if their hand is laying pretty flat at contact (like their going to sharply jab with the point of the second knuckles) the bat is probably more out in the fingers. Dog I aggree with you, the best single peice of advice I ever got was to move the bat into my fingers to have fluidity at contact point. And this was after gripping the bat back in my palms for 10 years of baseball. Palm grip makes for a more pronounced rollover of the wrist, it makes the bat "jump up" when this rollover starts. That's what I meant by fluidity. Plus it's quicker (uh oh duck, no proof here!!!) and more relaxing (duck again) Stick to your guns dog.

Hey, you may have something going here. As far as the comment about "what am I watching",the thing I was watching was when they're in their stance and through the load. I think my perception of in the palm may be different than yours and dog's. When I say in the palm, I mean with the big knuckles lined up with the second ones, i.e. Griffey. I would watch them during the swing too, but it's much too fast. I base much of my thoughts off of pictures, and clips(usually slow motion). For example, in an S.I. last year they show a picture of Griffey just after contact, and you could see his top hand awkwardly bent up, "like the top hand was wrapped around the bat." (hard for me to explain). If you read Steve Ferolli's "Hit Your Potential" he says that when that awkward bend occures it means your bat is lodged into your palms. He also believes you should hold your bat differently than anyone here has mentioned, bottom hand in the palm, top hand in fingers. I tried that, but it felt incredibly awkward. Anyways, I don't know if their bat changes positions in relation to the palms and fingers during load/swing , but that would be interesting to research. I just wonder if the position in the base of the fingers is a better positon in terms of compactness at contact. It seems to me that if my hands are in the palms it feels that I have more control over the bat, and in turn more compact at contact. On the other hand when I grip the bat in my fingers, it feels like I have a lot less control, giving me a loose feeling at contact. All opinions are welcome here, I promise not to go off again. As far as the comments of the wrists being more fluid at contact point, if you read Ferolli's book, again he says you want the strongest wrist/arms position at contact, if that's what you're talking about. I don't think the roll after contact is that great a deal considering it has no outcome on where the ball goes, since the ball is off the bat so quick. Again I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at. All I know is what I see working, and what I see not working, in my opinion. I think Griffey is the most mechanically sound player out there, and you can disagree. If you do, I say to you, who has as sweeter and more "fluid" swing in baseball? I believe he is a great example to go by, not the only one, but one of the best, and I know he grips the bat in his palms. That's another thing. I think many of the power hitters hold the bat differently than the contact hitters, maybe they don't, but it just seems that way. It would be interesting to find out. Well there's a lot to debate over in this post, but hey that's what it's here for, and I hope we can keep it clean and unpersonal. That's what I tried to do here. Hope to here some comments! Good luck to all.

Steve R