Batting with Wood bats- something I just noticed

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obbay

Banned
Aug 21, 2008
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Boston, MA
Maybe this isn't news to anyone else, but I just realized something the other day.
As kids we were always taught to grip the bat so that the label faced up when you held it over the plate. Ted Williams used to say he liked to have the label down so it didn't distract him. Same thing.

As an adult, I see that when the label is up, the densest wood grain is what faces the pitcher when you hold the bat over the plate. However, when I swing the bat, at contact I have palm up/palm down and the bat has rotated such that the dense wood is facing the ground/sky rather than pitcher/catcher.

So if any of you delve into training with wooden bats (or metalwood bats) like I do, be advised that how you hold the bat should be such that the dense grain faces the ball at contact.

for me and the girls I coach that means that the label faces the pitcher when you hold the bat over the plate so at contact it will be facing up.

When I told DD about this (maybe why wooden bats aren't lasting long) she said she noticed that too but didn't say anything because she thought she must be wrong (it couldn't be Dad who was wrong!)lol!;)
 

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