Why a Longer Swing May Also Be Faster

I suggested earlier in this space (and a million others have said it before me) that the metallic bat inspired the short, thin-handled, thick-barreled sticks used by today’s professionals. Such a tool does not lend itself to the maneuver I described last time as “separation”. It’s hard to let your hands slip off your back shoulder and wait as the rest of your body shifts forward when you’re holding something about as thick as a ballpark hotdog—you just want to slash down with that massive barrel. A longer bat gives you the balance you need to keep the hands back, while a mild taper in that bat would give you the control you need to whip it forward in a level sweep once the rest of your weight has shifted.

The whole dynamic, I repeat, is very hard to replicate with today’s bats. I used to think that the intrusion of aluminum into Little League and college programs, where the cost of replacing fractured wood models was always a nuisance, owned sole title to disrupting classic hitting technique. A second (or chronologically prior) cause of the old style’s waning, I now realize, was pitchers’ abandoning of the “windmill wind-up”. When an ace of yesteryear went into his deep pump, you were cued to inaugurate whatever preparatory foot and hand movements were necessary to get your yard-long stick leveled and cocked. Then hurlers started to deliver out of the stretch even with no runners on base. Don Larsen did so in his World Series perfect game—a 1956 showcasing of the style (Larsen had vetted it during the regular season about a month earlier) which made other pitchers sit up and take notice. Bob Gibson was still pumping away in the late sixties; but in general, pitchers were allowing hitters less time to get ready as hair grew longer and music grew louder.

Hence the criticism that I most often hear from young hitters about swinging off the rear shoulder: it creates too long of a swing. It need not. In fact, if done properly, this technique still generates a faster attack upon the ball (in my opinion) than the “all hands” swing down from above the rear shoulder. True, Car 22 will beat Car 33 in a drag race if 22 need only travel from A to B while 33 must travel A-to-B+50 meters. But if Car 33 gets to use its extra 50 meters to accelerate before the light turns green… well, that’s the trick. As a hitter, you must already have your weight moving forward when the pitch is released. (No pitcher releases so quickly that he gives you nothing at all to key on, though Roy Oswalt comes close.) Only the hands will remain back as the ball crosses the halfway point to the plate, and the decision to swing is a message sent only to those hands. The rest of the body surges into the pitch before the hitter has any inkling of location or rotation.

“Then you’re s sitting duck for a change,” my young hitters protest. Well… every hitter is always suckered by a good change unless he’s looking for it or the pitcher is giving it away early—and in either of those cases, the hitter whose lower body is actively involved in a weight shift can hold back just as well as the “all hands” hitter. In the second place, I really don’t think the old-school hitter has this vulnerability at all. In practice, a moving body allows the hands to stay back on a good change-up because the body can continue to move, outdistancing the hands all the way until the hitter is erect on his forward leg. The “all hands” hitter, in contrast, has nothing to help him keep his hands back—so he is really the one whom the good change puts at a distinct disadvantage.

Again, I’m convinced that you would need a long, well-balanced bat to give the old-fashioned technique a fair trial. Don’t expect it to feel right with the first $300 Catalyst you pull out of your bag.