Posted by: T Olson (timolson@home.net) on Fri Mar 3 12:53:09 2000

Some related info

http://www.eteamz.com/blackhawks12/files/bat.PDF

It's my theory as to why a little leaning over the plate (shoulder tilt) is a good thing. Although I don't think I would teach falling over to the plate I wouldn't necessarily think it's always bad either.

At contact--many good batters have the plane of their shoulders parallel with the plane of the bat. Which means on a low strike the hands are well above the barrel.

Pros seem to use the tilt angle rather than the knees to adjust to the height of the pitch and make dynamic adjustments during the load and just before the swing.

Current swing thoughts for my son? Make sure you feel a little like you are leaning over (toward) the plate. Make sure your rear elbow tucks into the side at the start of the swing and try to keep there and let body rotation work until the elbow leaves the side near the contact point. I think Jack here shows in his diagrams the player driving his rear elbow in at swing initiation and keeping it near that location well into the swing.

Tim