The Hitting Force

"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours." - Sir Isaac Newton

"Mickey Mantle’s at shortstop taking ground balls, throwing ’em by the first baseman, and outta the dugout comes Casey Stengel. He’s got a fungo bat in his hand, and he runs right at Mantle. Casey starts waving this bat at him, he shoos him out into the outfield, turns around and loudly announces to all the coaches and everybody that’s assembled, that this guy is gonna be a center fielder. ‘I’m gonna teach him how to play center field myself, and I don’t wanna see him at shortstop again.'" Hank Workman. Casey Stengel met Mickey Mantle for the first time at 1950 pre–spring training camp held in Phoenix. Mickey Mantle was 18 years old.

"Once when the Yankee's Lou Piniella was batting , Piniella questioned Umpire Steve Palermo on a strike call. Lou Piniella demanded: "Where was that pitch at?" Steve Palermo told him that a man wearing Yankee pinstripes in front of 30,000 people should not end a sentence with a preposition. So Lou Piniella, no dummy said: "OK, where was that pitch at, asshole?" George Will. "Three Baseball Boys" Joseph Francis Kernan, 1928.

@bamahurin @SangilloJohn

@bamahurin @SangilloJohn

Lab work assignment from @SangilloJohn.

When I visit our Minor League clubs, I don't just jump right into coaching. The first thing I do is listen and watch. I start "collecting coins." "Collecting coins" is finding out about who the players really are. I want to learn about them. Were there two parents in the house growing up? Just mom? Just dad? Any mentors? Did they love school or struggle with it? What do they like to do when they're not on the field? Movies? Books? How do they learn best? Anyone can read a scouting report and tell you about their arm strength or speed. But real trust starts building when you take the time to learn about who someone really is. Here's what I've learned: nobody lets you coach them until they trust you. And they won't trust you until they know you care about them as a person, not just what they can do on the field. @Rockies Make a difference today. Love, Clint

"This leaves the Yankees with Yogi Berra, which ain't bad. Berra is the most dangerous hitter in the American League. A tough game is his particular kind of bear meat. He chews along easy-like, then hits any pitch in the book out of sight." Dizzy Dean. "He stopped everything behind the plate and hit everything in front of it. Yogi Berra seemed to be doing everything wrong, yet everything came out right." Mel Ott. Yogi Berra wasn’t just a great receiver. Yogi would position his teammates on the field, putting fielding shifts in place decades before managers were doing so on a regular basis. “Why has our pitching been so great? Our catcher, that’s why!" Casey Stengel. Yogi Berra once caught an ENTIRE 22 inning, 7 hour game against the Detroit Tigers. “Predictions are hard, especially of the future." Yogi Berra.

@bamahurin @Chapel14Billy @Fiveframeswing @thewheelhousenj @shegone03 @danjaques96 @KyleBea96359130 @Teacherman1986

@forcefulhitting @Chapel14Billy @Fiveframeswing @thewheelhousenj @shegone03 @danjaques96 @KyleBea96359130 @Teacherman1986 Nope

Boss is 💯 correct. Let’s compare to HLP Certified instructor @thewheelhousenj student. I will keep it simple. They are not similar.

Training in the weight room isn’t just about “staying healthy.” It’s about giving yourself a chance to be elite for a long time. Chapman is 38 years old and is throwing the ball better than ever. I get to the clubhouse around 5:30 AM every day during spring training… this dude is already drenched in sweat and 2/3 of the way through his workout before most people even walk in. Physical specimen. Oh… and then he leaves driving a literal tank… talk about Bad Ass

Timing is highly misunderstood. The main reason it’s misunderstood is the belief that the swing is a sequence. So timing to them means getting a sequence timed to a pitch. That is not what great hitters do. The swing is an instant sudden burst...”
— Teacherman The problem with this statement is the HUMAN BODY itself works in sequence. Walking is sequence.
Throwing is sequence.
Punching is sequence.
Golf is sequence.
Hitting is sequence. Everything athletic works proximal to distal. The body organizes force from the ground up. What these “instant burst” guys don’t understand is they only study the perfectly timed swing. The pretty homerun on a middle-middle mistake. The 30% were timing lined up perfectly. Real hitters survive on the other 70%. Late reads. Changeups. Velocity. Balls off the plate.
Situational swings.
Emergency adjustments. That’s where REAL timing lives. Timing isn’t just “being on time.” Timing is the body moving forward while the hands stay back long enough for the eyes to make a late decision. The rear lat maintains connection. The pelvis transfers energy.The torso accelerates. The barrel releases last. That IS sequence whether people like it or not. If everything fired all at once in one magical “burst,” hitters would have zero adjustability. No ability to slow down. No ability to save the swing. No ability to control the barrel deep.
No ability to survive elite pitching. The best hitters in the world buy time because their body stays connected while pressure organizes into the ground and against the front side. That’s why great hitters can still compete when fooled. Human movement says otherwise.
Physics, biomechanics says otherwise. 
And high level pitching exposes it every single day.

"As I grew up, I knew that as a building, Fenway Park was on the level of Mount Olympus, the Pyramid at Giza, the Nation's Capitol, the Czar's Winter Palace, and the Louvre. Except, of course, that is better than all those inconsequential places." MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti. "Bart Giamatti did not grow up, as he had dreamed, to play second base for the Red Sox. He became a professor at Yale, and then, in time President of the National Baseball League. He never lost his love for the Boston Red Sox. It was as a Red Sox fan, he later realized that human beings are fallen, and that life is filled with disappointment. The path to comprehending Calvinism in modern America, he decided, begins at Fenway Park." David Halberstam. "You can say: 'Well, if they tore down Fenway Park, we can build a new one.' But you wouldn’t build it right. It’s better to make the accommodations, to save the old ballparks. If Fenway Park needs sky boxes to bring in the poverty-stricken owners enough money to save the stadium before they tear it down and move it someplace else, then build the damn sky boxes. If Wrigley Field needs lights to survive, put up the damn lights. Make the damn structural improvements, but save the ballpark because when you try to rebuild a cathedral five hundred years too late, it doesn’t come out the same." Thomas Boswell. "We love Fenway Park because we love antiques, be they rocking chairs or ballparks. But we love it even more because the eccentricities of the place mirror our own. It is, like us, difficult and cranky. And this makes it a mighty hard place for a player to play in. Too bad. Players come and go, but Fenway Park may become an American Pyramid." Clark Booth. "Fenway Park."

@Fiveframeswing @Chapel14Billy @GSSP25 @shegone03 @bamahurin @danjaques96 @KyleBea96359130 Not HLP on this swing last year with the Red Sox. Why would he want to change this swing? 🤔

@Chapel14Billy @GSSP25 @shegone03 @bamahurin @forcefulhitting @danjaques96 @KyleBea96359130 I will have to look into his swing and approach. I am Not familiar with him.

"History isn't dust. It's life. To sit with Ted Williams at age 76 is to know the Williams who 53 years earlier hit .406. It is to know the Williams of John Updike's story who hits a home run in his last at-bat, on a September day in 1960, and ignores the Fenway Park crowd's roar, circling the bases: 'As he always ran out home runs — hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap.' Players and umpires tried to persuade Ted Williams to come out of the dugout and acknowledge the beseeching fans. But he had never done that and he didn't do it then. Updike wrote: “Gods do not answer letters." All he ever wanted, Ted Williams said, was to walk down the street and hear people say he was the greatest hitter who ever lived. Maybe he was. Give him back the four-plus seasons he gave us during World War II and as a fighter pilot in Korea, maybe he leaves Babe Ruth behind. We told him so in his old age. There came a day of celebration in 1991 at Fenway Park. As Ted Williams walked to a microphone, he carried a Red Sox cap. With that little kid's smile, he tugged the cap on. “They say there's one thing I never did," Ted Williams said. Then Ted lifted high the cap. Gods do answer letters." Dave Kindred.

Your system survives only when attached to freak athletes talented enough to overcome it. That’s why the rest of the hitters attached to your “method” are either back in the minors, completely regressed, or out of the game entirely. Because your method is a made-up theory with no real evidence supporting its claims outside of attaching yourself to genetic outliers. Real development creates repeatable success across average athletes. It builds long-term trust, long-term relationships, and long-term growth from youth ball through college and beyond. I can almost guarantee most of the kids you were working with in 2017 aren’t even with you anymore because eventually parents and players see through the sales pitch. Stiff swings.
No adjustability.
Pull-side-only approaches.
No answers against velocity or spin. That’s not development. That’s marketing. So is your son the success story? Because outside of attaching yourself to elite athletes already gifted before you arrived, where’s the evidence your system consistently develops anybody long term?

"When I grew up, I woke up every day and my mom was there. I took it for granted. She's never tired- or she never showed it. Be as tough as your mothers. They show up all the time." ~ Mike Krzyzewski #HappyMothersDay

My JUCO coach used to say: “Leave the dugout better than you found it.” That lesson wasn’t just about a dugout. It was about the game. Respect it. Take care of it. Leave it better for the next group.

Yogi Berra joined the Yankees in 1946, fresh out of the Navy, where he had served for three years during WWII. Berra went to Yankee Stadium still wearing his Navy uniform, and the first person he met was Yankee clubhouse man Pete Sheehy. "I bet I don’t look much like a ballplayer", Berra told Sheehy. Sheehy replied: "You didn’t look much like a sailor, either." "Big Pete" Sheehy was the equipment manager for the Yankees from the age of 17 until his death at age 75. Sheehy was there when Babe Ruth slugged his 60th home run of the 1927 season. When Lou Gehrig realized his career was over, he flipped his glove to Sheehy and said: "I’m done, Pete." He witnessed home runs by Babe Ruth and the MVP season of Don Mattingly. In between, he was part of the organization for 21 World Series titles and eight additional American League pennants. Pete Sheehy was the man who issued Mickey Mantle uniform # 7, after Mantle was recalled from Kansas City, so he could get a new start rather than be given his original # 6. There is also a plaque in the dugout that reads: "Pete Sheehy 1927-85 Keeper of the Pinstripes." Yogi Berra and Pete Sheehy, 1983.

@GoGoGolson @SangilloJohn But, not every pitch can be hit for a HR.

@SangilloJohn @forcefulhitting Feels like there's a shift. Or maybe it's be liking everything that brings this perspective too hitting.. but I feel more people are being vocal about this. Situational hitting isn't being taught because everyone thinks homers are the goal every time.

Everybody wants to sell Barry Bonds’ home runs because home runs sell. What they don’t talk about is what Barry himself talked about constantly perfecting the DOWN. Barry understood if he could control the barrel down through the zone, stay on top of the ball, control posture, control the shoulder line, and turn the rear knee under him properly the “up” would happen naturally. The lift was a result of elite movement and elite decisions not some manufactured uppercut hand trick. The problem today is everyone studies the 30% of swings where the hitter got the perfect pitch and launched a homer. They ignore the other 70% the doubles in the gap, the tough takes, the late adjustments, the emergency swings, the pitches on unfavorable counts that required elite body control and elite decisions. That’s what made Barry Bonds terrifying. Not just bat speed. Not just mechanics. It was: •his mind •his discipline •his pitch selection •his vision •his hand-eye coordination •his understanding of the strike zone •his ability to control the barrel DOWN before turning it UP. The home runs became the byproduct. The “down” built the career. The home runs sold the highlights. Most hitting instruction today teaches the highlight instead of the foundation.

@shegone03 @Teacherman1986

If it’s TRUE that Manny Machado worked with @Teacherman1986 this offseason this would be devastating for the HLP clan! The HLP graveyard is growing and we don’t even know how many amateurs have been ruined trying to SNAP-IT and create TORSION using the Propeller and the Tilter! Stay tuned #shegone nation @notgaetti @BobFile @twuench @billdubs @iamrags @artofhitting @hittingguru7 @slider_sinker @SliderDom @low_and_outside @TheRealJHair @DMEASrecruiting @VandyonTigers @mikepiazza31 @SalMarinello @RVGDag @AMBS_Kernan