Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Nov 12 12:05:17 2002

>>> jACK,THE WAY i SEE THE M.L. SWING IS THAT THEY ALLGET THEIR LEAD FOOT OUT IN FRONT OF THEM AND USE THE LEAD LEG TO DRIVE THE FRONT HIP BACK ,AT THE SAME TIME THE REAR KNEE IS DRIVING DOWN AND IN,PULLING OR PUSHING OR WHATEVER THE REAR HIP FORWARD.THIS ALLOWS THE HIPS TO SPIN WITH GREAT FORCE TO ACCELERATE THE SHOULDER TURN.YOU CAN SPIN BY SQUASHING THE BUG AND YET GET MUCH LESS SPEED INTO YOUR SHOULDERS.YOU CAN HAVE TOO NARROW OF SPACE BETWEEN FEET AT TOE TOUCH AND SPIN BUT LITTLE LEG DRIVE PUSHING BACK AND DRIVING FORWARD WITH LESS RESULTS.I BELIEVE IN SEPARATION AND LEADING WITH THE HIPS AND I BELIEVE THEY SPIN FAST IF DRIVEN BY THE LARGE LEG MUSCLES IN PROPER POSITION. <<<

Hi rql

I would describe good lower body mechanics just the way you presented it above. But just a few short years ago, that would be called ‘spinning’. Rotating around the center of the body was what determined ‘spinning’ to authors such as Jim Lefebvre and Charlie Lau. To them, the back-side must rotate around a posted front-side (like a door swinging). Otherwise, the batter would have an arcing hand-path and hit around the ball (Jim showed drawing of this).

Rql, I guess when we use a term or cue, we should also give what era the definition comes from. These definitions seem to evolve over time.

Jack Mankin