The Perfect Baseball Swing

Hands to the ball. Hands to the ball. Hands to the ball. This addage was drilled into my head as a Little Leaguer growing up with dreams of making the big leagues and being Derek Jeter. I spent countless hours on my own, with my father, with friends, and with coaches trying to perfect something that's almost inperfectable. I spent my entire career up until about my senior year of high school thinking that my hands were the most important part of my swing. Which, do not get me wrong, they are. However, I was always a singles and contact hitter until a bunch of video and timeless hours once again concentrating on a different part of my swing did I become a more formidable hitter.

By the time I reached junior year of high school, I had a total of three homeruns in my entire career playing on Major League size fields. When in the off season, I went to a hitting coach, who happened to be the head baseball coach at FDU in New Jersey, and he brought me into his office and wanted to show me video. I told him the year before I wanted to increase my power and get more extra base hits. He compiled hours worth of video on all different hitters, different stances, and different approaches, but everything pointed to one area of the body that produced the pop one would need to create some damage in the batter's box: the hips.

"Hips start rotating before anything, hands follow." This is the quote I started telling myself before each swing in the batting cage, on the batting tee, and against live pitching. It worked beautifully. Starting my swing with my hips instead of my hands produced an enormous and impressive result. My hands became quicker, my power numbers soared and I felt a lot more comfortable in the box getting around on fast inside pitches and staying back on outside pitches. The point of moving your hips first was two-fold, it kept your hands back to allow for better bat speed through a quicker snapping motion of the wrists, and generated more leg power because you started your legs sooner.

Hips before hands. If you want to become more of a power hitter, look at video of the best power hitters in the game in slow motion. The hips always start before the hands and the hands whip around quick enough to generate the bat speed necessary to get some pop behind your hits. But always remember, practice pays off. It won't just happen over night.