Hitting and Hitters Discussion Hitting coach's of OHIO

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I have seen a couple girls in fastpitch hold there bottom pinkie around the knob of the bat when hitting.
Does anyone teach this? If so could you tell me why?

I have heard of mens slowpitch were some guys hold the knob when batting. Is it an old school thing? Different type of grip? :-/

Straighleg

 

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Not to get off-topic, but this is more than likely a "style" thing. There are FAR more important things to focus on in hitting than just what you're doing with your "pinkie". If she is a .400 hitter, then I'd say by all means try it. But if she's struggling to maintain a .150 average, I'd forget the pinkie thing and work on other hitting fundamentals that would help her to improve her hitting.

 

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I believe C Bustos teaches that and hits with her pinkie around the knob of the bat. ?

 

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Crystl and Howard demonstrate this by explaining how the hand actually works, and, if I remember correctly, it goes something like this: the pinky finger or baby finger is the weakest finger on the hand. You stretch out your right hand palm side up and then take your left hand and wrap it around the lower forearm. Now make a fist using only the baby, ring and social finger and not the index
finger or thumb. You can feel the muscles activate on the forearm. Now repeat this with using only the index finger and thumb and you will feel a slight amount of movement on one side of the forearm. They went on to say the baby, ring and social finger share a common tendon and are termed grippers and the thumb and index finger are termed balancer's. This is why Crystl never wraps
her thumb over the top of the index finger as it restricts the movement of the bat. She holds the bat in the hand where the fingers meet the palm of the hand and not in the palm or back of the hand.

She talked about some major league players tape their bats to have a bigger taper at the knob of the bat so they can "hang" the baby finger off it as it is the weakest finger on the hand. Softball bats can not be taped or modified like they can be for baseball. She went on to show that she puts the baby finger and ring finger into her fielding glove baby finger position in her glove and that
she feels it gives her more control of the glove.

She then had one of the dads at the clinic try to pull the bat out of her hand while only holding the bat with her ring and social finger and the other fingers were completely off the bat. It was too funny! She then demonstrated using the same Dad that how you positioned the bat in your hand could possibly mean about a 30 to 70 foot distance in the flight of the ball and that short to it and long through it and not rolling the wrist while the ball was on the bat was stronger. She had him try to push the bat backwards as if she was at contact with the ball with one hand and he did not move her. Then she rolled her wrist ever so little and he moved it very easily. She said they had studied this at the US Olympic training facility using kinesiologist and reviewing film of her swings. Howard showed a super slow motion clip of her 308 foot homerun swing and that was indeed priceless!

 

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luvthegame thanks.
I went to the clinic last year at middletown on a sunday. The things you mention about the dad must of happened sat., but they did show the force of pushing the bat, the fingers ect.

I have forgotten some of the things you mention. They say so much info in such a short time it is hard to retain it all.

Howard told me to try rvp instructional.

Short to it, long through it - great saying.

With RVP I have my daughter 75% there. Still trying to learn, still working on a great mechanical swing.

The head - thats a whole nother topic.

thanks for the replies
straightleg