I really went off the deep-end when I started talking to friends and associates about these "Alien Crop Circles" I had found in the baseball swing. I admit this approach is a bit weird and unfortunately I cannot offer this as an exact Science but I'll settle for a shoddy theory.
I started to look at youth players swings on video. I took an entire team of 8 yr old boys and captured their swings. I wanted to see if there was a pattern, graphically speaking, that pointed toward similarities as well as differences. So, I used video analyzing software which allowed me to go frame to frame making marks with arrows, circles, squares, dotted lines...before I knew it I had marks everywhere and hadn't a clue why...The only thing I discovered was that based on the data I had collected, there was no rhyme or reason to the typical 8 yr olds swing. There was one part that seemed had possibilities...the path of the hands and knob of the bat. Weird I know...I am used to seeing people track the bat path and perhaps the bat through the zone, but I couldn't help but think the hands and knob path would tell us, something...Yet, as I looked it was clear that they each had completely different ideas around which way the hands and knob should move. I couldn't leave this area alone though because it appeared that if you were going to track the bat path, the hands and knob would be the most suitable given the knob will always indicate the position of the bats barrel in space.
I gave up on the 8yr old swing for a bit and started reviewing the pros...Was there a pattern or relationship that was evident around the hands and knob path? While my research is limited to 2 dimensional video I think what I found was ground breaking, at least for me. Like a lot of instructors I begin my tracking at the Launch point, which is when the stride foot heel plants and the swing begins. At this point, you will find good hitters stacked up pretty close when you look at them side by side. I began making a line from the knob of the bat to (roughly) the top of the top hand at each frame. Second, I would draw a circle around the knob itself. The beginning sequence for the pro's was almost identical. Eventually, I narrowed down my markings to 5-6 key points in the swing up to contact. The first 3, which are the initial movement as the hands work to get to approach or on plane were remarkably close for the pros.
With this data, I went back and took a closer look at the 8yr olds video. I made markings at similar key points and found the more consistent hitters for the 8yr olds had, while different, more similar descending start to approach as the pros. In fact, the best hitter had the same start as the pros. Wasn't sure what to do with this information...so I did nothing. I just continued to mark with "Alien Crop Circles" every home run for the rest of the year from hittrackeronline.com The relationship was staggering for me and shed more light to the idea that the swing is more like a Science than an Art.
I wasn't happy with settling for similarities in the descending path of the hands and knob...I wanted to see if the patterns following this would tell me anything beyond the start of the swing. So, I began to look at the final 2-3 markings (approach to contact) and see if these relationships would help determine, or better yet, predict a players performance based on one swing. I made sure to track their very best swing on a mistake pitch and not an 0-2 pitch they were fooled on. So, I began to group players by average best to worst. The pattern I found shocked me and eventually lead me to a pattern I call "The Wade Boggs Curve". Boggs wasn't known for his power numbers, but his ability to stroke the ball at will to all fields and find gaps. He started with his hands rather low, compared to todays hitters, but his path to the ball is similar to what the best do consistently.
In order to have something to write about in the future, I will leave you with this introduction to my shoddy theory and write more about it soon. I figure if this wets at least one appetite then it will be worth it. This "Alien Crop Circles" concept is something that is much bigger than my brain can wrap around so I will need help at determining what some of the data I have collected means and whether or not its meaningful. The mystery, or incomplete data, rings similarities to those crazy markings in the fields...Is it possible there is a meaning behind these patterns or am I like a farmer with a tractor and nothing better to do?
