Posted by: () on Sun Jan 26 15:09:29 2003

I’m new to the forum and before I put out my question, in reading through the past answers, I’ve seen what I call the hard headed baseball types trying to tell the Fathers of daughters that there is no difference between fastpitch softball and baseball (I must confess I was one of those hard headed baseball types before I came involved in fastpitch, remember there are bad coaches in both sports). First of all the argument between linear and rotational was settled long ago in fastpitch. Because of the shorter distances (and testosterone) girls had to go to the rotational swing to have any chance in making contact,(with almost equal emphasis on women sports the development of pitchers in fastpitch is phenomenal). I have coached both baseball and softball for thirty years and fastpitch softball is a lot harder. A boy who is a gifted athlete can go a lot farther in baseball (even the majors) with poor mechanics. A girl with poor mechanics can’t make a good U-16 traveling team. Power hitters are easy to find but the little gal who can hardly hit the ball out of the infield but can consistently slap bunt from the left side will make the team every time. So for all those out there who think softball coaches are just trying to “protect their turf” you are doing an injustice to the Fathers who are trying to get their daughters prepared for top fastpitch softball.
> > > > Having said all that, there is still a lot of disagreement on what role the hands play in the rotational swing. (Another topic that can be brought up at a later time is the difference between the grip that softball coaches teach and baseball)
> > > > Theoretically if you take an ax instead of a bat and want the most power hitting that tree your top hand will be palm down and you don’t even (or can’t) roll your wrists. In swinging the bat obviously you have follow through which requires wrist turnover. Many coaches say if the palm is down you will pop up a lot. So give me some thoughts on hand position at time of contact and power vs. consistent contact. It might boil down to individual style.
> > > > Thanks
> > > > ps. Just looked at that compariable clip of softball and baseball- I think a whole book could be written on that- what a great clip!
> > >
> > >
> > > Welcome to the site. Although I disagree on the first half of your post you ask some interesting questions.
> > >
> > > Keep in mind that someone throws a ball and someone else needs to hit it. Whether the ball was thrown underhand or overhand is irrelevant. The size of the ball may make a difference but not much when trying to hit the center. In my opinion having played both at reasonably high levels (college baseball and 9th in nation fastpitch) they are almost identical. Yes we can argue the riseball but its just another pitch to lay off really. It is a "decision" thing not a swing thing. Your argument about boys going farther with less than good mechanics than girls is more boy/girl related than baseball/softball related. The boys have the strength to travel a farther distance with less than good mechanics.
> > >
> > > Now, for the hands question. I believe palm up/palm down is the only way to hit. What are the other options? Vertical? In between? Rollover? You can't get it done with roll over. Why does palm down equal pop ups? You have to get the bat to match the plane of the pitch and palm up/palm down is the only way that makes any sense. How else can you have any idea where the barrel is when trying to get it to the ball?
> > >
> > >By the way I noticed a mistake in my intial posting. I ment --top hand palm up, bottom hand palm down at contact like you say--sorry about any confusion.
> > >Your right about the decision thing. Once the swing is intiated it is the same. Since you played both do you think fastpitch has less time to react to pitches? It seems to me they do because of the distance but once again it might be the physical thing between boys and girls.
> > I agree on hand postion but the popping up theory persists. Maybe it has to do more with shouder position. The palm up/palm down hitting style might lead to a shoulder dip flaw more readily and if not corrected or detected leads to the popping up. It's probably like alot of these myths that just won't go away.
>
> I'm not sure how much time you've spent on this site or other rotational hitting sites but the rotationalist believe that the bathead is swung perpendicular to the axis of rotation (spine). If your axis is vertical the bathead is horizontal and at roughly shoulder height. You won't hit many pitches with a horizontal, shoulder height swing path because the ball doesn't cross your path. The body tilt lowers the swing path so that the bathead goes through the contact zone and stays there for a longer distance. With this tilt there is definately a lowering of the back shoulder as the rotation around the axis occurs. And, in this process, the hands get in the palm up/palm down relationship. Now and only now has your swing plane matched the pitch plane so you can be an effective hitter. If you're popping up with this swing you need to work on matching the plane better. Do this by posture adjustment. To blame popping up on the palm up/palm down relationship or the shoulder dip is probably incorrect. I guess you can overdue anything, but unless you are, just keep on working on matching the plane. If timing is an issue, which it often is in fastpitch softball, work on hitting the ball deep in the zone and hitting it the other way. Stay inside the ball and as your skill and quickness increases you'll get better and better and pretty soon you'll hit to all fields. Now, those great pitchers are hard on everyone. Be careful not to take your self to the woodshed when facing those kinds of pitchers because, simply put, their skills are better than your skills at that moment in time. Work on the swing mechanics, develop the batspeed with overload/underload training and you'll get to be the best you can be. Which is all we can ask.

Good post. The truism is good pitching, as you alluded to, will generally beat good hitting. The key is to have a swing that will do some damage when the pitcher makes a mistake. Or, in fp, be a real fast slapper/puncher and hope someone behind you drives something.

Mark H.