Posted by: skip (piks5@sbcglobal.net) on Mon Jul 2 06:24:42 2007

> My son is being given two different pieces of advice from two different coaches. One is telling my son to hit the ball out front with a short stroke. The other is saying to keep the hands back as long as possible and let the ball get in on him more. Both say that their way promotes a more powerful hitting stroke. Which is correct?

How old is your son and how good a hitter is he in games? Is he 9 and not real good, or 15 and batting third on his travel team?

The reason I'm stating these extremes is that younger weaker hitters are perpetually late on the ball, so you can't really argue with any swing cues -- eg, hit the ball out front --- which keep them from being late.

Then, the challenge changes.

With older kids on the big diamond, the better hitters are always fighting against being early. Pitchers play with their timing to try to get them out over the front foot. At this level, staying back and letting the ball get deep accomplishes two vital things: allows an extra split second to read the pitch, and keeps the hitter back in a powerful leveraged position to hit the ball hard.

If I had to choose one instructional approach to stick with from pre-teen through late teenaged, I'd go with stay back and let the ball get deep.