Posted by: Curt () on Wed Feb 9 00:27:52 2000

>>>It also makes it much more difficult to keep the bat head above the hands during the swing (resulting in an uppercut).<<<
>
> Hi Curt
>
> Good post, welcome to the site. --- I have always had trouble understanding the term “keep the bat head above the hands.” Do coaches mean the batter should actually try to keep the bat head above their hands as they approach contact? Or, just what does it mean?


Jack,

I read somewhere, in your information, that you placed paper over the TV screen and tracked the path of the hands during the swing to prove your theory on the "circular hand path". What if you did this and tracked the path of the bat head? I suggest that if you did, you would find that major league hitters all keep the bat head above their hands when initiating their swing and on their approach to contact. At some point before contact, the bat head will drop below their hands, so it will be in the same plane as the ball traveling to the plate. But how soon will this occur? If you were to run this same "paper test" on youth league players, (Little League, for an example) many of them will drop their bat head (below their hands and the ball) much too soon (for many different reasons) and tend to hit up on the ball (uppercut). I am not suggesting that the hitter chop at the ball either. This will produce the batted ball that is "cut".
There is a happy medium between the "uppercut" and the "cut" ball type of swing. It seems that it is difficult for me to describe in words, but I can "see it" when it is done correctly or incorrectly.

Again, am I making any sense?

Curt