Posted by: The Hitting Guru (hitman3527@aol.co) on Fri Feb 24 23:36:07 2006

> >>> The late Charlie Lau Sr. believed hitting homeruns was an advanced technique to be mastered later. Thus he came up with the absolutes of hitting in order to promote proper fundamentals.<<<
>
> Hi Guru
>
> I just finished reviewing Lau’s chapter on hitting a homerun. Other than telling the batter he must pull the ball off-line, would you fill us in on what other helpful revelations he made in that chapter?
>
> Jack Mankin


Hi Jack. I would not exactly call his helpful incites revelations, but I would say that last years Chicago White Sox benefited from the incites. The premise of the Lau Teachings are to promote team contributions from all players. He believed that in order to get consistent results day after day, it was necessary for each ball player to be able to make consistent contact and move runners which he thought was the most important part of winning baseball.

His approach was proven with the Kansas City Royals of the 80's. He was able to in still the execution which helped the Royals finish in the top of the standings much like the Atlanta Braves of the current era. Despite having only average team power the Royal's ability to move runners, maximize speed, and deliver in key situations kept them at the top of their division.

As you well know George Brett was his prime pupil who through the absolutes won 3 batting titles and was one of the all time clutch playoff performers. Brett was able to hit key homeruns when the situation called for it.

Lau felt that instead of crowding the plate and swinging for the fences in each at bat, a player was better of backing away from the plate, increasing his length of stide and making a postive direction back through the middle of the field in order to promote contact through the use of the whole field. Lau felt that the hitter's strength would take care of itself. Ex. Don Mattingly was known throughout his career to be a dangerous hitter especially from the middle of the plate to inside. Thus he should not have to look much for the inside pitch in order to turn on it for distance. He will just react to that pitch rather than bailing and pulling himself toward first base in order to hit a homerun. Contact first and the homeruns will take care of themselves.

This concept was briefly touch on as well in the Mike Schmidt study in that the pulled hit has to be made about 2 ft in front of the plate which leaves a very small room for error. He felt that this point contributed to more frequent strikeouts which resulted in a lack of movement of runners. Ted Williams also concluded that every player on the team should not be trying to hit homeruns since 9 out of 10 times their flyball would result in an out. This may be somewhat of an extreme but the point is well taken especially in a case when a player is consistently hitting fly balls to the opposite field for outs.