Posted by: Sweet Steve (Drwinsthry@aol.com) on Tue May 21 15:30:18 2002

For the most part, I think the posts are great. It seems that some are looking for validation of this technique by a major league player. Frankly, I would too. I can name dozens of players hitting near the "mendoza line" that should be trying something different. I have sent tapes to several players, but am not surprised by the lack of response. The baseball fraternity is a pretty closed group and change comes very slowly. Look at the current maple versus ash bat controversey. The people at Hoosier Bat Company and others have been trying to get big league players to use something other than ash for over 15 years. All of a sudden, Barry Bonds tries a maple bat in BP provided by a carpenter and then uses it to break the home run record. I think if baseball people were more open to new ideas like Jack's or mine, who knows what might happen. Until then, I will keep having fun teaching something that makes a difference. Finally, if you were to watch hitters who use my technique, you wouldn't notice much of a difference from other hitters except they would be hitting the ball harder. Thanks. Paul P.

Paul,

I've been following these threads closely, and since you brought up the subject of validating these theories via MLB players, I wonder if anybody can explain to me how Manny Ramirez manages to hit the way he does. I've watched a few of his swings frame by frame on video, and it's remarkable how far out in front of his body he makes contact--not just that, but if you look closely, on most of his "preferred" swings (i.e. when he gets his pitch), he seems to bring the knob of the bat all the way out in front of his body almost to full extension, with the base of the knob still facing the pitcher, before allowing the dragging bat-head to suddenly whip around and catch up. Obviously his results are good, but I wonder if he's just a freak of nature in being able to do that! Any comments? Am I not seeing it right?