Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Wed Nov 20 10:36:20 2002

Marvin-

You seem a little testy.If you think we're holding out on you here,I don't think that's the case.This has been discussed here many times.There is no generally accepted definition of long and short swing.Things aren't like that in life,especially the wacky world of baseball mechanics.Some people know what they like when they see it and they call it a short swing,but they can't consistently communicate what they mean.

If on the other hand you have an idea you want to get across,go ahead.

My personal definition would be in terms of an overall theory of the swing which may not be widely shared.I believe the key task is to minimize timing error.This is done by shortening the path of the sweetspot from launch to contact and by having the sweetspot traverse this path as quickly as possible.This is because the swing is a learned and stored automatic program that is executed subconsciously/automatically once learned.These types of activity are too fast for conscious control.The key factor is for the body to correctly predict(given minimal reaction time) the duration of the swing which is necessary to match the recognized pitch.Swing duration can be most precisely executed when the swing is short and fast.

Even in this context,you could mean a swing is short if it is "quick to the ball"(combo of elapsed time and swingpath)or just the swing path is short(path of sweetspot from "launch" to contact).How quickly a swing accelerates from launch to contact depends on how well the body is rotated to generate force and how well this is transformed into a turning bat.The Bonds approach is to generate lots of energy with good body rotation and keep the hands in as much as possible to minimize the swing radius and let the body turn quickly.This appears to be an optimal blend of length of sweetspot path,and batspeed to minimize timing error while not excessively sacrificing spatial accuracy.