Resurrected Gems from Tumblebug

[Greenmonsters]

I've created this thread to resurrect, share, and further preserve some nuggets of softball related information provided by Steven Anderson (founder of the Anderson Bat Company (ABC), the OG ABC, not the post 2013/14 version). I started looking for some of these posts while the "Which one would go farther?" thread here on DFP was progessing/degenerating and realized that there is a gold mine of information that may become lost in the bowels of the internet. I've provided my own topic category, the dates the quote appeared on SBF, and Mr. Anderson's quote in italics.

As a brief introduction, Steven Anderson (aka Tumblebug at SBF) is a life-long softball player/addict, former piano tuner, former NASA scientist, former founder/owner/bat designer at ABC, and an overall stand up guy who freely shared his wealth of knowledge, information, and insights with the people who actually swung and played the game. Forewarning, the man has a sense of humor and is inclined to call a spade a spade; I've posted this is the Tech Hitting Forum as occasionally some of the language, while tame by SBF standards, may approach the limits here.

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7/13/10 - Sweet Spot/Effective Hitting AreaVibrational Nodes/Center of Percussion)

"Saying the length of the barrel has a direct correlation to the sweet spot is a pretty clear over-simplification. The sweet spot is not directly changed by barrel length alone. The sweet spot is determined by the overall structure of the bat and the distribution of mass which determines by the vibrational characteristics of the bat.

When a ball is struck, waves of vibration travel through the bat reaching their minimum at two distinct points, or nodes. The area between the nodes is the effective hitting area or sweet spot. The distribution of the vibration in the bat determines the location and size of the sweet spot. This vibrational distribution is dependent upon the physical structure of the bat and can be changed and adjusted by changing many physical attributes of the bat structure. Only one of those attributes is barrel length.

Somebody asked awhile back how the resonant frequency came into play and I don't think I ever answered the question. This is half of that answer."


11/8/10 Sweet Spot

A sweet spot is a sweet spot the effective hitting area is something different.
There are two "sweet spots” on a bat: the vibrational node and the Center of Percussion (COP).

When a bat is struck, waves of vibration travel up and down the length of the bat. The vibrational waves cancel themselves out at a point called a (vibrational) node. If you hit the ball on the vibrational node, you won’t feel any vibration (sting) in the hands because the vibrations cancel themselves out and the energy that is not lost to vibration is transferred to the flight of the ball.

The Center of Percussion (COP) is the point where the impact of the ball causes the least amount of shock to the hands. If you hit a ball on the COP, you won’t feel any force on the handle. If you hit a ball above or below the COP you will feel a slight corresponding push or pull on your top hand. The farther you move away from the COP the more force you will feel. If you hit the ball at the COP, the bat does not lose energy in trying to rotate the bat and that energy is redirected into the flight of the ball.

When a ball hits the node, you don't feel any vibration in your hand. When it hits the center of percussion, your hand doesn't feel any force pushing or pulling against it. In either case the ball goes farther.

The effective hitting area is a combination of these points and the resulting degradation of performance as you move the impact away from them."

 

[Greenmonsters]

More Gems

5/1/12 History of Light Bats and Ray DeMarini

"I have lived, thrived and survived in this business through the transition that BigShep is talking about. My first high-perforamnce bat was 33 ounces. 38 ounce bats were very common. At that time 26 and 27 ounce aluminum bats bats did not exist and they were still considerably lighter than their wood counterparts. 26 and 27 ounce bats were not available anywhere before 1989.

The one thing people don't consider in this discussion is that Ray DeMarini was an excellent salesman and marketeer. He believed the lighter bat concept and he sold it so well that he actually changed the marketplace. Unfortunately there is no reliable science behind Ray's theory. However the lighter bat / higher batspeed concept as a marketing campaign was freakin' brilliant. It's like the power balance bracelet test. It is simply successful through a suggestive influence. When you remove the suggstive influence by creating a deeper data sampling, it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

The key here is that the lighter bats gave the bat companies something to hang their marketing caps on and they milked that for decades. It was not necessary to create new technology, all they had to do was make a lighter bat and sell it as better. The disservice they did to youth baseball during this propaganda campaign is immeasurable. In their defense, they made it possible for kids without the proper training (or talent) capable of some early success and that may have improved the number of kids that stayed in the game a little longer. but it didn't make them better hitters. No change in equipment can replace the proper training.

I can't tell you how many big men I have converted back to heavier bats in our testing. The results are incontrovertable when you measure before and after in a half dozen sessions on different days.

From the inception of Anderson Bat we have sung the praises of a heavier bats, as heavy as possible without losing batspeed and always slightly heavy rather than slightly lighter. Seriously, how long does it take to overcome an ounce in the gym? It freakin kills me to see guys that spend half their life in the gym, bench press 300+ pounds and swing a 26 ounce. Isn't the point of working out to be able to handle heavier and heavier weights?"


3/20/14 Swing Weight v. Actual Weight

"This complaint is as old as the OGRT! From the beginning I thought we could educate the buying public and offer a product that was designed as a game improvement tool that would have some success. To some degree we succeeded. We’ve sold a lot of RockeTechs! However, this issue, just like the infamous “trampoline” concept, has been very difficult to debunk in the eyes of the consumer because such a good job was done in selling the largely inaccurate stories.

The actual weight of the RockeTech is heavier than the listed weight on the bat because the listed weight is a swing weight calculated from the Center of Mass (COM) and Moment of Inertia (MOI) among other things. The added weight in the RT is in the handle, more specifically, the knob. Any weight within 6 inches of the rotation axis is virtually invisible to the MOI. The knob, snap ring and urethane that seal and load the handle for the first inch are 1.6 ounces heavier than the standard welded hollow-formed knob. That number is subtracted right of the top; and additional corrections are made in consideration of the adjustments in COM and MOI based on the positioning of the added weight. In a sound mechanical swing where the lower body and the rotational tranfer of momentum generate speed and power and the hands only deliver it, the added weight is an asset and not a hindrance once the bat is in a rotational motion and is an advantage in a linear downward motion.

Determining the proper bat for any hitter based on actual weight is retarded. Ultra light bats were a marketing strategy perpetrated on the public by the bat manufacturing industry in order to sell the “new and improved” technology. I know; I was there. Regardless of the marketing efforts of the industry, how many workouts do you think takes to make the 2 oz gain in strength necessary to overcome the added weight? Just like it works in the gym, good technique overcomes some weight and repetitions increase strength.

If you want to measure the power or quickness in a swing, measure the timing and speed of the hip turn. Then examine the hand path to determine any flaw that negatively affects the transfer of momentum and slows the upper body or extends the distance the hands have to travel. Look at the swing of any good hitter; the one thing that they all have in common is that they are always short to contact and long after contact.

The RockeTech FP is not for everyone. It is especially ill-suited for hitters with sluggish mechanics. Being a good hitter is a lot of hard work. Hitting instructors that advocate a light bat for the instant gratification of temporary success are doing their students a disservice unless that student has no future in the game beyond the level they already play.
Okay, here is the dichotomy in this scenario: of all the coaches that say the extra weight in knob of the RockeTech or TechZilla slows down the swing because the overall weight (drop weight) of the bat is too heavy, have you ever heard anyone of them say take off the batting gloves because the gloves weigh 3 ounces and make your hands heavier and you can’t get the bat through the zone because of the weight of the gloves? Have you ever heard any coach say that? You’ve never heard it because it is ridiculous. The rotational axis is in the exact same place, the momentum and inertial effect is exactly the same. The MOI of the swing is equally unaffected. You’ve never heard any coach say that. The weight by itself doesn’t matter, where the weight is placed makes the difference. If you take the same 2 ounces in the knob of the RockeTech or the same 3 ounces of the gloves and put them in the cap and it changes everything. I have trained many tiny-wisp-like kids to hit with a RockeTech and if the hitter is committed to the work, I have never failed to make them competent and successful with the “too heavy” bat."

 

[Greenmonsters]

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[Greenmonsters]

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[Greenmonsters]

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[Westwind]

"The RocketFlex is the best bat I ever designed".

That means better than all the years of RockeTech. RF was only made for one year. Sold as a -10 but swings heavier than a -9 RT. A whole lot of people who spend a lot of time watching fastpitch wouldn't even recognize a RocketFlex. DD has caused much havoc with two RF's that she loves dearly. Both of those bats ,(different lengths), were the only bat in her bag at the time. It was her bat in practice and games and she hit literally tens of thousands of balls with her "game bat". This was one of the highest performing, most durable products of any kind I have ever bought and it earned zero love from the softball world.

The RF was better than the 30" 2007 RT that she used for almost two years. I hate to think how many balls that tiny 'lil RT hit. Keep in mind she played for a coach who set up THREE hitting stations with pitching machines every practice, twice per week. Not a single wave or dent. That bat is hanging in my shed right now and has fantastic pop to this day.

I am fascinated by Steven Andersons story and the impact he had on the fastpitch world. I hope one day he decides to get back in the game.