Posted by: Sweet Steve (Drwinsthry@aol.com) on Wed May 29 20:19:43 2002

You know, what gets me about a lot of these posts--and this series is typical--is the vast amount of cognitive function you seem to be attributing to what is, in most cases, a simple reflex action (or the product of muscle memory) occurring in a mere fraction of a fraction of a second. You almost make it sound as if hitters "plan out" each swing, and I don't believe that most hitters--even the great ones--do that (just like I'm not so sure I subscribe to all of this "he went with the pitch" stuff you hear from broadcasters. Though I know that some players are accomplished off-field hitters, I'd bet that probably in half the cases, the ball going to the opp field is a simple, inevitable byproduct of the unthinking geometry of the batter's natural swing, and where the bat encountered the ball in the arc of that swing. Or sometimes the batter was fooled, or just late). I believe it was Henry Aaron who said "you can't think and hit." And I believe it was Charley Lau who pointed out that the inside-out swing, properly mastered, automatically adjusts for pitch location on most strikes. I dunno, maybe I'm missing something. Or are you arguing that the circular hand-path automatically "linears out" on outside pitches? Why would that happen, necessarily?