Posted by: PatA (patrick_allison@reyrey.com) on Wed Jan 29 09:55:17 2003

> >
> > > Can you explain the "seeing the ball hit the bat" problem?
> >
> > There is actually two problems, one caused when the hitter turns the head to "see" contact, this, (according to Epstein), causes rotation to stop at a point related to where the hitter is looking. Two, the most obvious, the hitter cannot actually see the bat hit the ball.
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> Why would you have to turn your head to see the ball unless you are an arm swinger with no hip rotation. I noticed in Ted Williams book that he has a slight downward look as the ball approaches the bat. I'm sure his eyes were following the ball into the hitting area. So where do you tell the young player to look if not at the ball. I agree you can't actually see the ball hit the bat but it seems you have to try.

Some say that the head drop may be more reaction to rotating forces than an attempt by the hitter to see the ball all the way in. Epstein uses the cue chin up, eyes level to remind the hitter not to always look out toward the pitcher and to not drop the head. I don't know, I see some of the same things in stills that you see, the hitters head dropping and appearance that he is looking at the contact point. I do believe that this is a reaction, if the eyes are visible, in most cases the hitter is not focusing vision on the ball, instead there seems to be no focus. In other words the hitter appears to be looking at nothing in particular.