Posted by: () on Tue May 7 10:55:13 2002

grc,et al-

One way to remain rotational is to hook/tighten the arc/radius of the hand path.This can be done by pulling the front arm in without disconnecting.This is rotational.This is not linear.

I would also agree that Barry doesn't need to hit the fence on the (?middle)inside pitch.Theoretically,you want to make contact on the sweetspot perpendicular to the path of the pitch with this being as far as the bat tip gets away from the body.The bat tip doesn't arc out and then come back to the body before contact.Ideally it gets to its maximum away from the body at contact(maybe just before the more you pull it).This is best seen on the straight overhead shot as in the Pete Rose clip that T. Olsen put up at setpro.In Barry's case,then,is the distance from the sweetspot to the bat tip enough for him to scrape the fence if he hits the middle/in pitch? probably not,but close.The fence could be set up in such a way to keep a player aware of the "shape" of their swing-in other words if the fence were along the outside of the plate,there should be a certain location they can hit that would just clear the fence when swinging well with the usual bat.

The potential is that the fence will intimidate the hitter into extending the hands/dragging the bat instead of rotating the body quickly enough that the fence doesn't get hit before contact.

Epstein takes this further by forcing the player even closer to the fence to overemphasize the feel of keeping the hands in and rotating.This does not often work for me,but often does for him.

The thing that really gets the bat head out fast as torso turn stops is the "L" coming out of the back elbow.On the inside pitch,the torso rotates much more and the bat head can then come out more gradually and still have excellent batspeed while keeping the ball fair.Again,this does not mean that you are not being rotational if the bathead comes out more gradually as in this case.