Hitch in the Swing.

Babe Ruth hitched, along with Ott, Williams, Foxx, Mays, Banks, F. Robinson and many others, including Bobby and Barry Bonds.

I know the pros do it, but they have quick hands. But should a kid still in development be taught that its ok to hitch. Thanks for the reply.

Yes, because it is O.K.....

Ted Williams talks about the "wasted movement" and "loss of valuable reaction time" when you hitch in his tape "The Science of Hitting". He also talks about the pros that hitch. I don't know of any drills however, I always use the phrase "start high & quick down". Some kids seem to respond to this.

Just because the pros have done it does not mean it is the best practice to teach to youngsters. Those who make it to the pros have such incredible traits, they can get away with things that your average youth player cannot.

Dropping the hands can lead to uppercutting and problems. It is also one more unnecessary movement, and one that takes time. Unnecessary movements can only be one more thing to get out of adjustment and cause problems. They are not constructive.

You are correct that young hitters should not be hitching, Coaches Rule.

A good initial "rest" position is with the bat resting on the shoulder. The next position is the "load" position.

If you watch Ted Williams in his "Science of Hitting" yea, he talks about it, but if you look closely, guess what, Ted is hitching too.

CV

The hitch performed by major leaguers is drawing their back elbow back towards the dugout. That is also their load. It is done by all the big leaguers with power. There are many big leaguers who do not do this and are fine hitters, but they do not hit with power. If a youngster has this move and you take it away from him, he will not hit for power and you can then blame yourself for the guidance you gave him.

The pros who load the back elbow (hitch) have done it all their life......they did not just start doing it when they signed a pro contract. They were fortunate that nobody messed with them when they were little kids.

BBScout is right guys period. Pick up a hammer. With no hitch or load whatever you want to call hit strike a nail. Then take the same hammer and bring it back or load it then strike the nail. There is no comparison. The same thing is true with a bat. Hold your fist by your side. Strike it out like you are going to punch someone. Now hold your fist by your side and then draw it back and strike like your going to punch someone. What feels more powerfull to you? Is there any doubt?

bbscout,

I agree 100 %. AKA scap load.

CV

Dropping the hands "hitching" is different from loading, Coach May.

Dropping the hands hitching can be one way of loading.

The hitch is a timing mechancism for many hitters. Take it away, they have no timing.

Hitches aren't bad unless they affect everything else.

To say you have to get rid of it is not correct.

Well said Teacherman.

First of all, Ted Williams' book has innaccuracies......

Second of all, MLB hitters do not rely on quick hands.......

And, you would do well to emulate everything Barry Bonds does in his swing.......And, Bonds does hitch......So, ...........

When I think of hitching, it is not pulling back (loading) for the swing. It is when you drop the hands or move the hands up or down to give your swing a strange path. But I do have disagree with however said there are no power hitters that do not load. The are many in MLB.

a kid on my team has a hitch. i dont think it affects his hitting tho. hes hitting .530 with 7hrs as a junior. if it does affect his swing i wonder what he would be hitting without it????

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"



CV

Savannah

Not to argue, but I can't think of any MLB power hitter that does not load. Did I mis-read your statement? I believe that ALL MLB power hitters load. Some are more pronounced and some are more subtle but from my analysis all have a load sequence.

quote:

Originally posted by Savannah:
When I think of hitching, it is not pulling back (loading) for the swing. It is when you drop the hands or move the hands up or down to give your swing a strange path. But I do have disagree with however said there are no power hitters that do not load. The are many in MLB.

All the power hitters that I have on film load. I have about 125 major league power hitters on film and have checked out all of them in slow motion and frame by frame. They all load.

Everyone is different. Some people have a hitch, some people don't. There is no point in trying to make everyone have the same swing. There are a few general rules that you would like to stick with for hitting and pitching but in general, I let people find their own styles as long as the major things are taken care of. I have a little problem with kids having a hitch after their load. Some guys drop their hands as the pitch is on it's way and they struggle to hit anyone with decent velocity...85mph or harder. You can still get to the slower pitchers but the harder the ball is coming, the more the hitch may effect a player. Now, if the player can hit 85-90 mph pitching with this hitch, why change it?

I THINK what the original poster meant was a very PRONOUNCED hitch versud the more subtle hitch which is being referred to as a 'load ' by most posters here.

My opinion is that it's in the timing. If you start your hitch/load too late, obviously you are going to have problems catching up with a fastball.

hitching is ok -as long as you get into a good position of power before you swing- look at bonds- he starts with his hands low- i dont know how many coaches have told my son that he needs to start with his hands at his shoulders- he used to watch rod carew,s sybervision when he was young and his hands were about 6 inches above his waist- gradually my son has raised his hands to the pec- then hitches up slightly before swinging- seems to be doing fine like that

quote:

Originally posted by bbscout:
The hitch performed by major leaguers is drawing their back elbow back towards the dugout. That is also their load. It is done by all the big leaguers with power. There are many big leaguers who do not do this and are fine hitters, but they do not hit with power. If a youngster has this move and you take it away from him, he will not hit for power and you can then blame yourself for the guidance you gave him.

The pros who load the back elbow (hitch) have done it all their life......they did not just start doing it when they signed a pro contract. They were fortunate that nobody messed with them when they were little kids.

BBScout,

I've seen your kid hit. Doesn't he have a hitch? I've noticed he hits with power.

yes

quote:

Originally posted by Texan:
Dropping the hands "hitching" is different from loading, Coach May.

Exactly - people are arguing about two different things here. "hitching" means dropping the hands down before raising them up again to swing - it's a rhythm/timing thing and it is detrimental.

The elbow back and up is something different, and necessary. It's the equivalent of the archer pulling back the bowstring. It's the "load".

The key thing with hand movement is that any movement which takes the bat out of the launch position "will" become detremental to the swing. Most major leaguers barrel of the bat moves forward a little (Sheffield and Bonds a lot.) Which is not a hitch, but rather the beggining of a whip motion for the bat when pulling the knob to the ball. Launch position (a 45 degree angle off the back shoulder) is wherre the barrel needs to get when the pull starts.

For example, if a hitter moves his bat to a 90 degree angle to start his pull to the ball, the knob is pointing down. The hitter then has to pull the knob up to the ball. A baseball bat is a lever as the knob comes up the barrell drops and the hitter pops everything up.

In general the quieter the hands the better the swing for younger players.

As far as triggering with the back elbo going towards the dugout would put the back elbo behind the hitters backbone. Since the back elbo comes into the side or just inside the front of the hitter, I'm not sure how a hitter would accomplish pulling the knob of the bat to the ball. The only way a hitter can turn his back elbo to the dugout is coiling his front shoulder in towards the plate. Now a hitter has to pull his front shoulder out to get his elbo and hands back into the hitting zone, but by doing so will pull off the outer half of the plate.

quote:

Originally posted by Krakatoa:
...Exactly - people are arguing about two different things here. "hitching" means dropping the hands down before raising them up again to swing - it's a rhythm/timing thing and it is detrimental.

The elbow back and up is something different, and necessary. It's the equivalent of the archer pulling back the bowstring. It's the "load".

WOW. If it is written it must be true.

quote:

... I'm not sure how a hitter would accomplish pulling the knob of the bat to the ball. The only way a hitter can turn his back elbo to the dugout is coiling his front shoulder in towards the plate. Now a hitter has to pull his front shoulder out to get his elbo and hands back into the hitting zone, but by doing so will pull off the outer half of the plate.

WOW. A biomechanic? Definately not a hitting coach.

I believe that the place that a hitch can get a high school player in trouble is when the barrel head moves with the hitch to a point that they can't get that same barrel head to the ball. Also, I think that degrees of "hitch" are important. Athletically, we don't have many kids that can have a "hitch" of more than a couple of inches who can then progress through the swing. We do have one kid that has a "hitch" and he kills the ball. No sense fixing what isn't broken. He is one of the best athletes on the team.

quote:

Originally posted by Teacherman:

quote:

... I'm not sure how a hitter would accomplish pulling the knob of the bat to the ball. The only way a hitter can turn his back elbo to the dugout is coiling his front shoulder in towards the plate. Now a hitter has to pull his front shoulder out to get his elbo and hands back into the hitting zone, but by doing so will pull off the outer half of the plate.

WOW. A biomechanic? Definately not a hitting coach.

Not sure why you would get personal about my profession. I do not question yours! I'm a little confused... I thought this was a discussion about hitting? So I will back up my statement with video of arguably the best hitter in the game today, and for sure the best young hitter in the pros.

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/team/player.jsp?player_id=405395

Click on "Pujols homers again." Elbo being pointed back to the dugout? Coiling the shoulder back?

I'm not sure how a hitter would accomplish pulling the knob of the bat to the ball.

Why would you want to?

The only way a hitter can turn his back elbow to the dugout is coiling his front shoulder in towards the plate.

Not true

Since you didn't address the issues, I'll break it down for you. What say you?



I see no pulling of the knob. Pay attention to the top hand and you'll "feel" there is no pulling of the knob going on. Rotating of the knob......maybe. No pulling though.

quote:

Originally posted by Teacherman:
I'm not sure how a hitter would accomplish pulling the knob of the bat to the ball.

Why would you want to?

The only way a hitter can turn his back elbow to the dugout is coiling his front shoulder in towards the plate.

Not true

Since you didn't address the issues, I'll break it down for you. What say you?

Why would you want to pull the knob of the bat to the ball? Batspeed for one, and second, to not have a long swing. It's called staying inside the ball.

Obviously you did not look at Pujols swing from the link I provided.

"Not true?" How else would you get your back elbo behind your back if you don't coil your front shoulder?

The video speaks for itself and does prove the point.

quote:

...

"Not true?" How else would you get your back elbo behind your back if you don't coil your front shoulder?

Figure that out and your hitters will raise their averages and hit for more power.

Good hitters do not pull the knob. Pulling the knob will create a long swing not cure one.

quote:

Originally posted by Teacherman:

quote:

...

"Not true?" How else would you get your back elbo behind your back if you don't coil your front shoulder?

Figure that out and your hitters will raise their averages and hit for more power.

Good hitters do not pull the knob. Pulling the knob will create a long swing not cure one.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach Steve:

quote:

Originally posted by Teacherman:

quote:

...

"Not true?" How else would you get your back elbo behind your back if you don't coil your front shoulder?

Figure that out and your hitters will raise their averages and hit for more power.

Good hitters do not pull the knob. Pulling the knob will create a long swing not cure one.

There you go again getting personal. Are you like 13 years old or something? You know nothing about me or my students. Why are you making this a personal thing? I really do not have the time to teach you hitting on a message board, I will assume the more astute parents and players will look at the Pujols swing link to back up my theory, or they can just believe what you are saying as the gospel to hitting.

I'm not on here to argue with you, but to help hitters and fix the problems for H.S. and college students.

The clip provided here is a nice clip, but it is not long enough. It needs to show Pujols about two seconds before this clip starts.

The term "staying inside the ball" is a very poor one and is overused without helping any hitters. If you hit the ball any place on the bat without the ball hitting your hands, you have stayed inside the ball, but have not necessarily done a good job of hitting the ball.

If the clip started 2 seconds earlier, it would show clearly that Pujols drew his back elbow back towards the dugout, just like 99% of all power hitters in the big leagues do.

As far as the front shoulder turning in a little when this happens.......big deal. They all turn in. Some a lot and others very little.

The knob is pointed at the ball for a millisecond only. When you take a swing, the knob will be pointed in a lot of directions during the course of the swing, but you don't pull the knob to the ball.

Pulling the knob of the bat to the ball is a cue that works for some hitters, who don't actually do it. Personally, I don't like it because my son has gotten into the habit of actually doing it and it is not good for his swing. We spend a lot of time trying to break the habit. At some point in the swing as the elbow tucks the knob is pointed, not pulled in the general direction of the ball and then the head of the bat can go fairly directly to the ball. A pulling motion with the hands tends to slow the swing. I do like to see the hands extend after the ideal contact point because it helps keep the bat in the zone a bit longer on a mistimed swing despite slowing the bat down a bit.

IMO, for what little it is worth, in a good swing the top hand goes forward by rotating around the upper arm with the elbow still tucked and not by extending that elbow like you would when throwing a punch. Of course there are swings where hitter will make an adjustment and extend the elbow somewhat.

As far as hitches go I've seen players helped by a hitch, I've seen players with an excessive hitch helped by getting rid of it and I've seen players I wish would develop some sort of timing move like a hitch.

bbscout,
BTW, my 13yo lives and dies with the Dodgers and he's been doing a lot of dying lately, but he's decided for some reason that the Nationals are his next favorite team so please have a good draft and good luck to Brett.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach Steve:
I'm not on here to argue with you, but to help hitters and fix the problems for H.S. and college students.

Sorry if increasing the BA and power of your hitters offends you. Whatever their numbers are now, getting away from pulling the knob will help them. As well as scap loading.

Video won't help unless you can see what you need to see. Study Pujols frame by frame. Then video yourself to duplicate what he's doing. Be very observant. I bet videoing yourself pulling the knob will not create a "Pujols" looking swing. Or any MLB player, for that matter.

Coach Steve....

You're not going to learn how to teach hitting by backing off.

We must all admit... You can copy the Pujols swing without getting Pujols type results.

Just didn't want anyone to think it's as easy as copying someone's swing.

Please continue