I am no expert but our batters remind me of Dagwood Bumstead when he ran out the front door with his head thrown back. If I was chopping fire wood or driving a spike in the ground and leaned back when I swung I would miss the target and probably break the handle of my equipment.

Yea I played HS baseball and this is amazing to me. I played tennis too and if I leaned back when I stroked the ball it would be a disaster.

Anybody else notice this??

I don't know if our hitters are leaning back. However, the idea is to have a slightly upward swing plane to match the plane the ball is on. A downward swing plane intersects the plane of the ball in only one point ( or line actually because planes intersect at a line ). Whereas a slightly upward swing plane meshes the balls plane with the swing plane over a longer distance, giviing a better chance of making contact.

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However, the idea is to have a slightly upward swing plane to match the plane the ball is on.

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Really?

I can post about a million other examples of players "leaning back" when they hit.....if you'd like.

Wonderful question? And just think, these are the people on this website that criticize this coaching staff.

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I don't know if our hitters are leaning back. However, the idea is to have a slightly upward swing plane to match the plane the ball is on. A downward swing plane intersects the plane of the ball in only one point ( or line actually because planes intersect at a line ). Whereas a slightly upward swing plane meshes the balls plane with the swing plane over a longer distance, giviing a better chance of making contact.

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For educational purposes please do not believe this garbage. This is downright comical.

The idea behind "staying back" is simply that. Keeping the majority of your weight on your back side. Doing so helps to prevent hitters from "rolling over" on off speed stuff and allows a hitter to stay behind the ball.

Ideal is vertical balance and behind and inside the ball and lagging with bat (another subject). To the extent one is leaning back or forward the furhter they are from perfection and less chance of hitting. That said many good hitters groove swings in a less than ideal manner and many more pictures are taken where the hitter is seeking ideal but has not reached it because of being fooled, or mechanics just not firing on all cylinders.

they are trying to stay "behind" the ball. the best thing to look at on a players upper half is if his head is directly above his back knee. If you drew a line from the button of the hat (or where it would be) through the midlle of the back knee and to the groud, the line should make a 90 degree angle with the playing surface. Doesn't have to be perfect, but that is the general idea.

fireinthehole is exactly right. If you think you should swing down on the ball you should listen to what Ted Williams used to say when he talked about hitting. There are many different beliefs on hitting and none are exactly perfect. There are times when you might want to swing down on the ball but if you want to hit for any power you must get your bat on the plain of the baseball.

It has nothing to do with swinging up or down on the ball. Its about staying balanced and behind the ball.

I'm not talking about the being balanced part. I was just commenting on the correct bat path.

OK. But the OP asked why hitters appear to be "leaning back" when they swing. Somebody then went on this tangent about swinging up on the ball when the real purpose behind staying back is just what I and another poster explained.

I agree with what you said about staying back but what fireinthehole said was not garbage. The correct bat bath is a slightly upward path. If you do not think that is correct, you need to do a little more studying of the swing.

Just look at the posted pictures. Those hitters swing plane is level to slightly upward. Check out Lance Berkman, Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, etc.

By the way, we are talking about the swing plane thru the hitting zone.

Surely we can have different opinions without referring to other opinions as "garbage".

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 5/17/2008 12:07p).]

fire

you are full of it. You are supposed to swing down and through the pitch for line drives. That is what they preach in baseball.

And Lance Berkman is one of the best at it. I have seen him hit pitches out of the park where it looks like he was trying to hit a grounder on purpose.

Yeah all this top hand stuff that college and professional coaches preach is a bunch of hogwash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7qNAbcibZU

swing down=little league 101....flat to up thru the hitting zone is where ya want to be...

yes you start down first (talking milliseconds here) to get to the ball....from there, swing plane level to up...

berkman for example, has such a sweet swing, cause he keeps the plane level throughout the whole hitting zone...




[This message has been edited by SteveMedina (edited 5/17/2008 1:39p).]

Just be the ball, Danny. Be the ball.

fire is correct. You want to match the plane of the ball coming down out of the pitchers hand with the plane of your swing which of course is slightly upward. When you swing you are ideally rotationg around a certain point (your spine). So by leaning back slightly it'll match up the 2 planes.

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fireinthehole is exactly right. If you think you should swing down on the ball you should listen to what Ted Williams used to say when he talked about hitting. There are many different beliefs on hitting and none are exactly perfect. There are times when you might want to swing down on the ball but if you want to hit for any power you must get your bat on the plain of the baseball.

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HAve you ever heard of dropping your top hand on the ball. You hit homeruns by hitting down on the ball and putting backspin on it. That is basic baseball.

No can't say that I have.

um..no.

it doesn't matter...either ya got it or you don't.

[This message has been edited by SteveMedina (edited 5/17/2008 3:35p).]

[This message has been edited by aggie1906 (edited 5/17/2008 3:35p).]

Great video to illustrate my "poorly worded" point. The video batter is leaning "back" (like I eroneously described it) but he is hitting through the ball. When I say "leaning back" I really mean .... how can I describe it...???... how about leaning away from the ball. I don't mean the angle of his body. Our batters seem to "pull away" from the plate as if hitting for the fence and hoping to connect. They are not hitting through but rather "hitting at" the ball. I cannot describe what I mean but Look at the batters tomorrow and you will see what I mean. Thanks for the answers but it was a faulty question.

It's all because of the Bernoulli effect.

An object in motion tends to stay in the same motion unless acted on by an outside force.

I am typing this under the effect of several pourings of amber liquids from Scotland.

66, that is actually one of Newton's laws. Bernouli correlated increased velocity of a fluid with a drop in pressure.

Great video 1906.

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An object in motion tends to stay in the same motion unless acted on by an outside force.

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newton's third law of motion my bro

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No can't say that I have.

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Then you have obviously never played baseball. Pro hitters can swing up on the ball because they are much stronger and can get a pop up to go out of the park. Anyone else swings down on the ball to hit line drives.

huh?

In a text book swing, your back leg is bent in a roughly 90 degree angle and your knee is pointed to the ground. Your front leg is straight. This keeps you back, which give you maximum power. The only way to really do this is to lean back slightly.

The alternative is to have your weight too far forward. Then, the best you can do is hit a hard grounder and if you get too far forward, you have to pull out of the swing to get the bat on the ball.

I'm certainly no expert, but I have coached a lot of junior baseball and we are always trying to get the kids to look like the pictures and videos posted above. When they do, the results are significantly better.

There are more theories of hitting a baseball than there are people who have ever hit a baseball.

Recheck the Bonds vid above, his motion to the ball isn't upward, the movement of his bat to the point of contact is downward. It is a misnomer that any good hitter's normal swing is on an upward plane getting to the ball. The only way to physicall swing "up" on a ball is to swing at a ball in your eyes. No one advocates a swing that continues downward after contact with a baseball (where the batter's hands and swing would finish below his waist)...that's ridiculous. As is the idea that there's an upward swing on a ball for any successful hitter.
If a baseball bat was flat (as in cricket) an upward trajectory of the bat would be needed to "lift" the ball...the fact that a baseball bat is round eliminates the need to have an upward titled plane of a swing in order to "lift" a baseball.

A baseball "swing", like that of BB's is a "backsided swing"...with little to no shift in the center of gravity (weight stays back). At the point of contact, the back knee, back hip, back shoulder and head are all in a vertical line or slightly titled back. Bond's is "short to the ball and long through the ball" as it should be. In a "swing" such as BBs the force is generated with the largest muscles in the body (in the back leg) exploding the back hip (torque) into a closed "front side" which creates a ratcheting effect of the force up the body (this is why core strength is important...to efficiently transfer this force) to the shoulders and bringing the back side of the body to the point of contact and out through the back arm as it explodes through the zone.

However, the "mechanics" of hitting a baseball pale in importance when compared to the skill of "watching the baseball"...this is the fundamental (and most ignored) skill in hitting. There are no "good swings" at the wrong pitch and there is no differentiation of the right and wrong pitch without the gathering of sufficient visual data. There are substantial and identifiable differences between the "gaze control" (or how the ball is seen) between good hitters (those who actually hit the baseball) and batters (those who stand in the batter's box and try to hit a ball).

F=ma. Any way you can get there.

d.

Navy, you make some very good points, especially the last paragraph on seeing the ball and recognizing a good pitch to hit in time to actually hit it, which all takes place in less than about .5 seconds. Ted Williams treatise on hitting starts with "get a good pitch to hit" as number one. 20/20 vision or better is a real must (he was a fighter pilot).

However, the plane of the bat head in the hitting zone with power hitters is level to slightly up, even though the bat head starts above the zone. This is accomplished by the body mechanics that you so very well described.

You are the world, we are the USA, don't mess with us and we won't blow your **** away.

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 5/18/2008 9:03a).]

fire,

Unless one holds one's hands at his belt, or the ball is at his eyes, the track of the bat to the ball is down. The physics of the "swing" do not allow the hands at or above the shoulders (with the bat head significantly above the shoulders) to take any other track to a ball in the strike zone but down. Once through the zone the bat will have an upward track due to the physics of the swing and with the hands finishing high.

Check out Barry's swing above one more time. Barry's hands are next to his back shoulder when his swing is intiated (despite the dropping of his hands when he loads, they are back by his shoulder when he intiates) and the bat head is well above his head. He makes impact with the ball about crotch high 6-8" inches in front of the plate (this ball was on the inner 1/3 of the plate) and his hands were belt high at impact. There is no other way to get the bat head and his hands to those positions at contact with an "uppercut" swing.