Home Runs and Strikeouts

[90210]

So Coach JD explain to me again how a pitch released from the pitchers mid-thigh, say 30" high and travels to the letters of a 5-9" batter, say 50" off the ground, is dropping. I understand that gravity is pulling the entire way, but that ball is not falling, rather is fighting gravity on an upward parabolic path.
I am no expert on any matter softball but the idea of duplicating the swing angle of MLB players is ludicrious given the the obvious differences. Further, it seems to me that most TB coaches spend too much time vomiting YouTube guru advice to every player without considering the abilities of the player as an individual.
I watched in Myrtle B this summer a team (Wildcards, I think) where half the team could outrun UBolt and the other half could drive the ball. The coach maximized the abilities of the athletes' talents he had in a given situation. To me, that was mighty fine coaching.

You're right that high riseballs are definitely travelling upward the entire way. The counter is that those pitchers are rarely strikes, so don't swing.

With hot bats, short fences, anti-slapping rules and improved defenses (in the infield, and you sometimes have the slow sluggers stuck in the OF), swinging for the fences is likely often the right play.

 

[Cannonball]

First, the launch angle stuff isn't new. Some guy named Ted Williams explained it a year or two ago. Maybe more! Secondly, these discussions on this stuff go way back. Instruction per that stuff Ted Williams described has been going on for a long time and I was coaching it at least in the 1980s. My dd grew up hitting that way. What is dying off is the notion that there is a "baseball swing" and a "softball swing." I recall when my dd was 12 and we went to a college camp where the coach told her that she had a "baseball swing" and would not be successful in softball unless she changed that swing. Nuff said.

 

[Golfclubgreg]

I think the fact that you are getting bigger stronger athletes in softball has picked up the pace as well. At our high school, we have more girls out for softball than we do either VB or basketball. It’s a great sport for young ladies!!!!