Not a One Handed Compliment

This is a peeve of mine that goes right down to the very core of my being. There is something in baseball that bothers me so much it infuriates me — more than watching players cheat by using steroids, more than watching the commissioner covering up for his incompetency by using an exhibition All Star Game to determine home field advantage in the World Series, more than watching pitchers spit on the ball to try to cheat the opposing batters, more than watching an umpire call a pitch a strike that is at least six to ten inches OFF the plate, and more than watching players constantly grabbing their crotch when they are up to bat because, well, they just feel like touching their genitals in front of 50,000 people.

What bothers me is this. Why do hitters in baseball swing at pitches, and in the middle of the swing decide to finish the swing with just one hand on the bat? I have seen more players swing and miss at pitches (and look stupid doing it) because of this technique than anything else in the whole time I’ve been watching this sport.

The object for the batter is to swing and HIT the baseball when it is pitched. It is not an easy task. A pitcher can throw a fastball up there between 90 and 100 MPH and a player has only a split fraction of a second to decide not only whether to swing, but where to swing at it to make contact with the ball, and do something with it if, and or when they make contact. Will the pitch be high, low, inside, outside? Or off speed? The pitcher can also change speeds and make the ball MOVE, and sometimes throw a slider, a curve ball, a splitter or a change up at speeds ranging anywhere from 68 to 88 MPH, with the fastball in the 90+ MPH range to be considered as well. A batter then has this split second to determine whether it is the fast fastball, or the slower, off speed breaking pitch that is coming at that particular moment. He also has to know where the pitch, which is seldom thrown straight, will end up.

One would think that the control of the bat would be the most important hitting tool the batter has, but instead, many, many baseball players have decided to remove ONE HAND off the bat right at the critical, final part of the swing. Why is there this need to release the top hand at the split second the bat hits the ball when the object of the pitcher is to have the ball be deceptively moving somewhere at the last second? There is a disconnect here.

Does it provide more power? I don’t know. As powerful as the physically fit, well trained and seriously buffed athletes playing baseball are these days, I have not seen the all-time “longest home run” distance records (The Mickey Mantle and Frank Howard 550+ foot home runs) being challenged by any of the current crop of stronger, better conditioned hitters. A titanic, mammoth home run these days is, what, 480 or so feet? Why is that? Aren’t the strongmen of today just as strong or stronger than Frank Howard and Mickey Mantle? They probably are. But the ball just isn’t traveling as far.

Does the one handed swing provide more control over the swing? If this technique is so good, one would think that batting averages and home runs would be up and strikeouts would be down. Ah, but that is NOT the case. Averages were down a lot this year (several people “made the top ten” in the National League hitting in the .290’s). Batters today are striking out MORE now than at any time in history. True, they seem to be swinging for the fences more now, BUT actual home runs are down also. The Major League leaders only had 40 and 37 home runs respectively. So, strikeouts are up, swinging for the fences is up, but home run totals are DOWN? Where’s the beef?

I have a theory. Golfers swing at a golf ball in very much the same way that baseball players swing at a baseball. They swing on a different plane, yes, but the idea of gripping the club for maximum distance and control, the stance of each, the transference of weight during the swing, the extension of the arms at impact, and even the follow through in golf is very similar to the baseball swing. Either golfers are completely missing the boat and SHOULD be swinging a golf club with a one handed follow through. Or, baseball is missing the boat and (let’s just say most of) its players should be swinging the bat with TWO hands. Throughout the entire swing.

Let’s look at some other sports. Do power lifting weightlifters lift large amounts of weight over their heads with just ONE arm? No, they use two. Tennis players, who had ALWAYS hit a backhand shot with one hand, have now, in very large numbers, routinely switched over to a TWO handed backhand shot. TWO hands, for more control AND to get more power into the stroke. Golf? I don’t see anybody on tour swinging “one-handed.” Maybe cricket swings at their “ball” with one hand instead of two? Nope, not them either. No one-handed croquet players either.

The one argument I hear that should at least be addressed is that someone could say, “look at how good some of these guys are doing with their “one handed swings.” Albert Pujols, for example, has been one of the best of the “one handed swingers.” Has anyone ever thought to consider that he might have been better (especially on the off speed pitches that seem to give him a lot of trouble) had he kept the right hand on the bat throughout the swing? I would bet large sums of cash that if he switched, he’d cut down on his strikeouts and he’d hit for an even higher average. Could it be that some players were just really good with their “one handed swing,” but were so good, they would have been good any way they swung, and a bunch of copycats just copied the one handed part of it?  And then it became THE way to do it?

I hate to say this, but the reason one handed swinging is so prolific in baseball is because the culture in baseball is, by and large, not very smart. They do things one way and damned if they will ever change to anything else. If they were the Titanic and heading right towards an iceberg, they would keep going straight ahead and not veer off course. What harm is that little piece of ice sticking out of the water going to do to our ship made of solid steel? Baseball keeps telling their pitchers to pitch a certain way, and one after another, they are tearing ligaments and tendons in their arms, left and right, and needing Tommie John surgeries every which way but loose to try to fix them. What, us change the way we’ve been doing things for all these years? Nonsense.

I go back to the golf analogy. Golfers are players that swing at a ball just like baseball players. But their ball is stationary, just sitting there on the ground and not moving. A baseball is coming up to the plate at different speeds, sinking, rising, curving, dropping to a degree that the batter doesn’t really know for sure where it will be until the last split second. And yet baseball players continue to consciously choose to release their top hand on every swing, causing them to swing and miss at pitches in alarming numbers, especially when a pitcher is smart enough to change speeds.

Golfers have the option of also swinging one handed but they purposely choose to NOT do it. I ask the question. If swinging with one hand is such a great idea, why haven’t golfers, who will try any club, any gimmick, any device, any technique to try to further improve themselves and help them hit the ball better, why don’t they adopt baseball’s technique of swinging at the ball with a “one handed swing” that releases the top hand right there at impact? Why?

Because golfers DON’T want to swing at the ball and MISS!!