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It is mean, that you throw your hands toward the ball and the bat follows to contact. If the bat preside the hands, the swing goes around the pitch and you only can hit inside pitches too ahead of the homeplate, most of the time, to foul territory. So it is really important to keep the hands inside the ball.
quote:
Originally posted by BB27:
I am having trouble visualing what this means. Your hands start between the body and the plate and to my knowledge the hands never are over the plate therfore aren't your hands always inside the ball?


You make a very good point. Most coaches I have seen who teach this, do it with a tee and have the hitter practice hitting the inside of the baseball, as Teacherman mentioned.If you practice this, then the cue would mean something to you. If you have never done this, then the cue would be meaningless to you. There are a lot of cues, and if you have been shown something that is helpful to your swing and you understand what it is for, then that particular cue would be good for you. If you have to guess what the cue means, then stay away from it until it is explained to you.
Hands inside the ball is typical of any expression some posters say is useless without knowing what a particular coach demonstrates to give value to this phrase. For us, Hands inside the ball would be used in conjunction with any hitter that consistently tries to "cast" their hands. You've all seen this type of hitter that has a long swing as if they were trying to encircle the ball. I doubt there are few useless phrases since the majority of coaches I know demonstrate what they mean when they say a phrase.
For a cue to be good it has to be able to be interpreted the same by those who hear it.

Hands inside the ball can be interpreted by a "caster" as "I'm fine, clearly my hands are inside the ball".

A cue that takes demonstration is a dangerous cue. Doesn't mean it won't be successful in one on one situations. But it is still dangerous. Especially one that has permeated baseball as much as this one.
To get inside the ball the hips must lead. THe best way for the hips to lead is to have the upper body delayed and create upper body resistance to rotate against. A circular hand path is essential. Taking the knob inside the ball from launch is swing poison.

Ideally, the knob should go initially to the oppo batters box and the turning hips and shoulders redirect it.( this is not casting that I am talking about because the hands are rolling off the rear shoulder) A straight line hand path and a circular hip turn will not link

Drill that works ...

Point the bat tip to the direction you will hit it and in front of your helmet. ( in this case RC field). This pronates( turns it palm down at 45%) the top hand and raises the rear elbow. Stride to balance and hit. Let your upper body do what it will do naturally. The only way to screw it up is to stay on the back side and spin. You will be inside the ball the right way.. The hands at launch will be almost touching the rear shoulder and the knob will point for a brief moment ( via slo-mo ) to the oppo box

Saw Mike Candrea doing this on tape at the ABCA show in Nashville. When you launch from the 45 slot from a static position( dead start) your hands stay too far from the shoulder tip and do not get in a circular path....they get pulled in a straight line toward the pitcher.

Unless you overlap the load/unload the hands
( get the hands going back as the hips rotate open) will never get close enough to the shoulder tip nor do they have a chance to launch in a circular path.

When you pronate the top hand in front of the body, the bat path is getting flat( and on plane) and sets up resistance to the lower body as the lower half rotates into toe touch. The bat come out knob to oppo box and redirects from hip/shoulder turn and flail forces the barrel to get perp to the pitch.

The measurable difference in these to techniques is the difference in the distance of the hands from rear shoulder tip at launch and the momentum and direction of the bat barrel.
Last edited by swingbuster
Demonstration and then player performing turns a cue into a cue.....

One peice of information(cue) can be interpretted many different ways. But, link that one peice(cue) of information with another peice(demonstration) and it has fewer ways to be misinterpretted. Now link that to another peice(player performs) and through triangulation misinterpretation is minimalized.

It's called teaching....
Teacherman- I understand what you are saying, and for once you are right...ALL hitters keep their hands inside the ball, regardless of how they swing. The cue here isn't to "measure" whether they are inside or not, but to help them consciously think about the fact that their hands must go to the ball to hit. Is there a better cue? Maybe. Do my kids TOTALLY understand what I am saying when I use THIS one? Definitely. Good coaches are able to convey their ideas in many different ways.
Teach,
Well since you put it that way I've seen LL'ers get hit in the hands by a ball they were swinging at. Smile

More seriously the top view of Rose you can find on that youth coaching site shows Rose's hands almost over the inside edge of the plate (on a middle out pitch). Having seen that it wouldn't surprise me if a kid who casts could get their hands almost over the center of the plate early in their swing. They'd have to pull off the ball pretty badly and swing around the ball to get their hands back "inside" the ball when swinging at an inside pitch.

No way to prove this actually happens. Just speculation that it may happen in a few instances.

I'll agree with most of the rest that swinging inside the ball is a cue that really means don't let your hands get outside the arc describing the path of the hands necessary to make contact with the sweet spot of the bat. Using this definition also accounts for those cases where a kid will swing at and hit a pitch that would have hit him otherwise, which happens a lot at the lower levels.
Last edited by CADad
The point as I see it is

Is the bat barrel arcing toward the ball path driven by hip turn.
( ball swinging on a rope)
or

Is the bat being pushed or escorted out there by the top hand as the body moves forward

Hate to say those tired words but I'm afraid it has to do with linear vs rotational mechanics

Teacherman is right....hand are always inside. THe better swings show bat lag and the barrel behind the hands longer.
Posted by swingbuster,

quote:
Teacherman is right....hand are always inside. THe better swings show bat lag and the barrel behind the hands longer.


My interpretation of hands inside the ball is exactly what you've described in the better swings. Though, I don't use the term "bat lag", but that's just me.

When the barrel gets in front of the hands... the hitter is no longer staying inside the ball. At this point he is outside the ball. (As your looking at the ball) Staying inside the ball has nothing to do with the actual path of the ball. I would think all hitting coaches would know that.

I do agree, that if hitting coaches do not understand or explain what staying "inside the ball" means they probably will confuse young hitters.
Teacherman-
If I'm scaring YOU, I guess I'm probably on the right track...and I'm guessing I'd BEAT you, too!
I think you would find you'd be so much better at whatever it is you DO in the game of baseball if you were willing to admit for one single second that you don't know everything. Try it (listening) sometime....you just might LIKE it!!!
If you look at clips in slo mo good hitters take the knob to the oppo batters box at launch. If you believe this then you build the swing around this thought and do the things that make it happen.
Not realizing this makes some very good baseball coaches not good htting instructers when it comes to pure mechanics.
I strongly suggest that people go start to finish and read Jack Mankins site until they at least understand his message.( While the bat IS arcing toward the catcher/ knob to oppo box, I don't feel or teach the top hand pulling it there( but it might be doing it unconsciencely)...other than that cue he is 100% correct)
What he says happens I can see in almost all guys in the record book. It took me several years of saying "naw..that's not happening" but I went back later and used his principles to become the most effective that I think I have ever been based on quick results with kids.
Teacherman-
Just got back from the Michigan H.S. Baseball Coaches Association Clinic and listened to Mike Epstein, thought by many to be the foremost hitting expert in the country (present company excluded, of course).
One of his 3 "absolutes" to hitting: KEEP YOUR HANDS INSIDE THE BALL. Man, do I feel foolish for not listening to YOU? Color me red.....
I'm still waiting for a clip of a hitter, any hitter, pro, college, hs, little league, who takes a real swing in a game and his hands aren't inside the ball.

When you can show me that you will have proven your point.

Until then, we're left with a cue that has 10 meanings to 10 different people. You can call that a good cue if you want but I suggest you dig a little deeper and come up with more specific words to express your thoughts. Words that most people can agree have the same meaning.

BTW, if you want to depend on Epstein, God help your kids. All of the best hitting gurus disagree with him.

Please don't tell me you use the fence drill also???????
Last edited by Teacherman
Coach Knight, Epstein is not the foremost hitting expert........He is better than most......However, some of his material is already outdated......His teaching is useful to get people to thinking and understand that the status quo in hitting technique in baseball circles isn't optimum........In other words, he helps people to realize there is a better way.......

Teacherman is right....."Hands inside the ball" can mean too many things to a player.....Especially, since they already do it, anyway.....It confuses them.....Teach them to "stay connected" and to "hook" if you want them to learn proper rotation......
Last edited by BlueDog
Not to argue, but since we're talking about terminology... "Hook" has many meanings some of which are very negative in hitting. So without explanation it could confuse hitters, just like most words that are used.

"Staying connected" would be meaningless without explaining what it means. "Staying inside the ball" is meaningless without explanation. "Scapula load", rotational, etc. all need to be explained before having full impact.
A large difference between short hand for the sake of making a post shorter and a cue with several meanings.

Blue Dog said hook......meaning a hook in the hand path. There is nothing unclear about a hook in the hand path. May take some explanation but a hook is a fundamental and easily expained.

On the other hand, when you tell a hitter to keep his hands inside the ball, when in fact all hitters do, all the time, it has either little meaning at all or has as many meanings as there are people hearing it.

I agree "staying connected" has to be demonstrated or explained. But, if I don't know what it is I won't check it off as "I'm already doing that". "Hands inside the ball" can be checked off by every hitter who has ever played as something he is already doing.

BTW, your changing of "hands inside the ball" to "staying inside the ball" is a step in the right direction.
Last edited by Teacherman
No problem with your comments, grateful.

Explaining is critical because the language we have doesn't do justice to hitting or throwing.

Problems arise when cues are thrown around by coaches, to kids, to parents, then parent to parent, then parent to kids and the meaning of the cue has now changed 10 fold.

This happens regardless of the cue. How bad does it become when the original cue was ambiguous?
Hate to tell you gentlemen (I mean Teacherman and Blue Dog), but there is in fact more than one way to teach the game of baseball. I liked what Epstein said - would I make it religion for my hitters...NO! I think there are many schools of thought, and I am interested in all of them. What I am NOT interested in is people who think they have the only way of doing things. Have I used the fence drill? Yep. Have I coached kids who can really hit? Yep. Have I worked with, played against, listened to, and taken notes from people who know hitting better than either of you? YEP!!!!
You might be right...but you might NOT be, too. If you could just ONCE present your information as intelligent and non-judgmental people without pretending you are too smart for us "mortals", you might be surprised how much more interested we all might get!
Last edited by Coach Knight
Teacherman

I recently purchased Epsteins Enforcer drill and it is done next to a fence but there is more here. Mike starts the batter as you know probably with the feet wide and the rear foot skyward. He holds the bat on the deltiod , rear elbow down.
This drill is about rotation and the fence is the enforcer. Its about working the lead elbow up and driving the bat through with the rear elbow down and lead elbow up with hip turn.

The action squares the bat on a far inside pitch location ( with the hands staying inside tha ball alright) but a better description would be the barrel is still behind the hands on an inside pitch.In order to do that the hips must clear. For the hips to clear ahead of that pitch location you WILL learn how to rotate or you WILL knock the fence down

I think some people try to do the fence drill by leading the knob and disconnecting the hands in a linear path such that the lead arm gets extended way in front of the batter and then flip their wrist to fire the bat. In these type fence drills there is no value ..I agree.

Mike's tapes can take kids with rear leg and rear elbow extension( Lau type hitters) and they do lots of good in a short time.

We took a kid batting 183 in the 8 hole in the 9th and used them during the summer. He batted 4th and hit 387 leading the team in BA and HRS as a 10th grader.
Last edited by swingbuster
I am by no means a "hitting" expert here but I have spent alot of time researching it for the purposes of teaching our youth baseball team.
During the early years of teaching our kids, I, as well as many other coaches I knew (none of which were so called experts), used the fence drill in our practices. I can say that the drill actually does perform its purpose if you are teaching more of the "old school" LINEAR mechanics. It really enforced the "knob-to-ball" cue, that I think we are all familiar with.

That being said, I would not even think about using the fence drill now a days, but that is because I have converted over to teaching the ROTATIONAL mechanics (I am a Mankin convert, but ***** has some good advice also and uses a little bit different terminology to help explain some of the swing mechanics).

The point is the fence drill has it's purpose and if you are teaching and believe that the "Whip" theory is correct than use it up but it really has no place in the camp of Rotational mechanics.

That being said, Have we determined exactly what it means yet to "Keep your hands inside the ball!" I have read alot of different theories on this "old" cue (I know I was get told to do it when I was a kid) but I have not seen a definitive consensus on what it means and is it only used as a cue in Linear mechanics or does it have a purpose as a cue in Rotational.
Teacherman- Correction: you post YOUR truth, concocted by you, supported by few. Wanna know the people who ruin hitters? People who don't CARE about the KID that is doing the hitting...and I love my guys. What are YOU in it for teacherman? I come here to learn, you come here to spew venom....which one of us is more likely to get results?
Thank you for reminding me why I coach....to make sure that people like you don't ruin great kids who love the game and not what they can get from it. I'm sure you'll regurgitate some more garbage, but I'm through...
You're right, for once...I shouldn't quit. That would just allow your foolishness to become gospel.
OK, you want a defense hot shot, here it is:

You (endorsed by...well...YOU) vs. Mike Epstein (endorsed by Ted Williams)

You vs. most professional players I've met and played with over the years

Anything else? Look, I love that you have opinions...but explain to me why they are LAW and not simply your opinion? For ONCE, actually defend WHY you can't, in your infinite wisdom, listen to anyone besides the voices in your own head. Instead of wasting time attacking me (since you are obviously beyond me in terms of your baseball knowledge), enlighten us as to why, with all the knowledge, you choose to attack people who think differently. My money says you'll not only avoid answering my challenge, but you'll also attack me in the process....bets anyone?

P.S. Has nothing to do with growing up - it has to do with hoping that somehow you might learn to be a part of the forum instead of the problem in the forum. I guess I like to see the best in people, regardless of how blurry my sight gets.
Last edited by Coach Knight
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