Posted by: daw (daw72756@comcast.net) on Mon Mar 7 09:54:30 2011

> OK,
>
> So I went in the back yard swinging a 32" 20 oz., bat at the Swing Speed Radar and was getting 68-70 mph swings using rotational mechanics as best as I could and then tried it with linear mechanics as best as I understand it and my linear mechanics values were usually around 5 to 10 mph slower. But, I'm biased toward rotational mechanics and don't know how much of one type of mechanic was creeping into the other. I tried my best.
>
> I'm curious to know what others get?
>
> By the way, "daw" <???@????.???>, I would like to be able to use this quote ("Anyway Ted said throughout the day: "Hitting is a turning
> motion, not a lunging motion".") from your previous post but I need more reference info that just "daw". Can you supply that to me, please?
>
> Thanks!!!
>
>
> > I haven't been on this site for awhile so I'll rehash my Ted
> > Williams story. In 1977 I was a college baseball player and got to
> > attend a hitting clinic where Ted Williams spoke in the afternoon.
> > He was the best speaker ever and it remains one of my best sports
> > memories. Anyway Ted said throughout the day: "Hitting is a turning
> > motion, not a lunging motion". Somebody asked him when he shifted
> > his weight "from back to front" and he said "I don't shift my
> > weight at all. My weight is balanced between my legs at all times".
> > Ted's coaching point was rotating the hips, not the shoulders, but
> > he was talking "rotational". I don't recall him talking about
> > anything that could be called THT.




You can email me at the address above. The clinic was in the winter of 77 or 78, at Bellevue Community College (a suburb of Seattle). I was playing for U of W. Reggie Jackson,then in his prime for Oakland, was the other speaker on hitting, Wes Stock, then pitching coach for Oakland, spoke on pitching.

More than one person, including Jack, has addressed the fact that even major league hitters may not realize all there is to their own swing......At this particular clinic, Reggie spoke in the morning and emphasized "swinging down" on the ball. Ted spoke in the afternoon and as everyone here knows, advocated swinging "slightly up". There was something of a nervous titter among the crowd when he said 'swing up' and Ted asked what was the issue.......when someone told him Reggie just told us to "swing down", Ted laughed and said "Well, Reggie may THINK he's swinging down, but he's swinging UP". (And of course there is point where the hands come down.)

For the other poster last month.....My memory of Ted's comment on the "weight shift" issue is how I described it, and I took it to mean he advocated little, if any weight shift. I have a good memory of it because I was such a linear hitter that I literally couldn't figure out how one would swing a bat without explosive motion forward, even after trying myself. I didn't figure out what he was talking about for another 20 years or so, when I stumbled onto this site while coaching my daughter's fast-pitch little league team. Daughter still plays but I'm out of coaching so I'n not on here very often.
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