Posted by: () on Sat Mar 6 18:59:33 2004

Last week the softball forums were filled with comments about the charity softball game between American and National league players. As part of it they had an exibition of Jenny Finch (olympic pitcher) vs. six of the major leaguers. She struck out all six. She got them mostly on rise balls which wouldn't have been called strikes. Here is one of the comments: "Check out Barry Bonds' swing -- at the beginning of the swing the bat head is already on the hitting plane (it's pointing into the catcher's glove) -- with the head of the bat dropped to that point, there is NO way he or any other baseball player can recover the head to hit a either a true honest-to-God riseball or even the more common running riser (fastball that elevates like a jet taking off during its 40- or 43-foot course to home plate) with girls/women." I don't necessarily agree with that but do have concerns.
> I am in the process of converting my daughter to rotational mechanics and want to know your ideas about the rise balls that she is going to see (u18) and applying rotational mechanics.
> I contend that 90% of rise balls are not strikes and learn to lay off them but that is easier said then done when they are throwing 4 or 5 different pitches at her.
> Comments please.
>
This was on another site.

http://home.mindspring.com/~rmk/ULL0001.mpg