Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Fri Jul 6 11:44:59 2007

>>> I have a 6 year old son that dropps his hands while batting left handed. He has a quick bat, power, but is late on the batting machine. Funny thing is, when he bats right handed, his swing looks great. I was thinking of getting a tee with the backward arm to overcome his uppercut. Any advice? <<<

Hi Kelly

I find that the main reason most hitters lower the hands too soon is caused from the batter trying to get the back-arm down to a more powerful position for driving the top-hand forward. To counter this tendency, I have the batter concentrate on making more efficient use of the lead-side to initiate the swing. Instead of using the drive of the top-hand to extend the knob, I have them concentrate on keeping their top-hand up (and back) at the back-shoulder and allow the rotation of their shoulders (including the lead-shoulder) to swing the hands (and bat-head) around to contact.

Far too many students have had their progress stalled by being told they must “keep their shoulder in-there” at the start of the swing. It is a common, but false, belief that rotating the lead-shoulder too soon causes the batter to “pull off the ball.” Actually, all the best hitters rotate the lead-shoulder as the swing is being initiated – even on out-side pitches. Granted, the lead-shoulder will not rotate as far around on balls on the outer-half, but it should still begin its rotation during initiation.

Here is a video clip of Griffey’s swing we made on this topic . – Note: we used the “Advanced Coach” addition that does not have the voice-over capabilities of the "VCR" version.

www.batspeed.com/media/Griffey_analysis1.wmv

Jack Mankin