Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Thu Jan 10 23:44:56 2002

>>> There is one thing I would like to find out. Is swinging down on the ball a good way to swing. I know when I first started swinging like that when I would hit on a indoor pitching machine I started hitting alot of ground balls, and line drives ever so often. But after about a week or two I noticed that my batspeed was quicker, my swing was shorter, I was hitting low and high pitches with a more level swing, and I was hitting more ground balls and line drives, I hit a pop up rarely. I know that some people have said it isn't good because you hit a tremendous amount of ground balls, but I guess its not applying to myself. The pop-ups I could say are decreasing because I think that when swinging down you really cut down your chances of getting under the ball. I only see a handful of players swinging down today, but one I could say definitley stands out is Paul O'neill. He may of not hit .300 every year in his career, but he was a consistant hitter and from myself watching him, he could hit every pitch. He was probably in my mind the toughest player to strikeout in baseball. He worked that count to the end and never gave in. He was a line drive hitter who hit frozen ropes and ground balls. So after explaining why I think it make's myself a more consistant line drive hitter, do you think that swinging down on the ball is the way to swing a bat? <<<

Hi Andy

Welcome to the site. -- It has been a while since I studied Paul O'neill's swing, but I don't remember his swing plane angling downward in the contact zone.

Andy, take a look at, http://www.clutchhitting.com/ss.htm I am sure this is not what you have in mind for " swinging down" at the ball, but I just can't get those images out of my mind when someone mentions swinging down.

Jack Mankin