Posted by: Jeremy (nativetrout at earthlink dot net) on Thu Jul 12 16:11:45 2007

Not sure I agree that Ichiro is "linear". Sure, he slap hits the ball frequently. But that ball he crushed to the arcade wall (the inside-the-park-hr)was pure rotational hitting, i'll bet. I have seen his home run swings and they display, as far as I can tell, rotational mechanics.

I agree with everything else you say, especially about the use of aluminum and the astroturf-influenced hitting taught in the 70's (how many youth-league coaches today are products of that era?).

What's even more shocking to me than hearing some LL or even high-school 3rd base coach telling his kids things I've never seen a good professional hitter do, however, is to hear people like Dusty Baker (and other broadcasters) say things on national TV about hitting that make no sense at all. A friend told me that Baker said during the home run derby that Harmon Killebrew's power came from a strong wrist roll-over at contact(not a pulling of the bottom hand, but a rollover-snap!). Did anyone hear this? I mean, what video does he watch?!? What is he seeing? And what about these guys talking about "good arm extension" on home run swings? How about Lance Berkman in last year's derby talking about 'hitting down on the ball' to get more backspin (he hit a total of 3 home runs)?

The point is that there is a major disconnect between what people think is happening and what is actually happening. Thanks to people like Jack maybe we're beginning to learn.