Ted Williams also played a different game - the mound in his era was 15″ high, 10″ now. So - - today’s pitcher releases the ball from a point 5 inches lower than he would’ve in Williams’ day (more or less - the slope on the old mound was steeper, so it wouldn’t be the full 5 inches).

The best hitters release the bat tip from high to level - - - it goes up after contact, not before.

The notion of “getting on top of the ball” is a function of the most common error (and the easiest out) - the fly ball. Go to a game and count every ball hit (fair or foul) - does the majority of struck balls go up? or down?

Uppercuts produce pop ups, fly balls & slow rollers; a level swing produces harder ground balls (the plane of the swing being closer to the direction of the hit ball than is the case in the uppercut swing, more force is applied to the ball).

Ideally, you want your hitters to be patient enough to wait for a hitter’s pitch & aggressive enough to attack it if it’s the first pitch they see.

Young’s swinging at too many ‘pitcher’s pitches’; Mauer’s history has been to let too many hitter’s pitches go by (last year, he was taking BP fastballs for strike one).

I have 4 of Ted Williams’ books, and one of the greatest things I’ve ever read was a Peter Gammons article back in the 80’s in Sports Illustrated with Ted Williams, Wade Boggs, and Don Mattingly.

Ted taught them how to hit, but he didn’t know how to hire a coaching staff, and he didn’t understand the concept of pitching much at all, it was all Hero time. Don’t hit the ball the other way, pull the ball.

But yeah… even in his flaws he taught people how to be better people, and baseball players how to be much better baseball players because who in the hell would argue with Ted Williams?

Gardy’s knees, and his back are pretty much out of whack so he’s been relegated to Boof Bonser mode (whining on the bench, and not going ballistic on the mound.

My take on the media perception is that the local press tends to track down more off the field antics to tear the team apart with, rather than the more exected “criticize their play” approach.

I still feel that the local sports media chased Moss out of town. Or at least tried its darndest to shape the perception of the fanbase so we wouldn’t miss him.

It ticked me off.

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One thing I’ve noticed this year…has Gardy been tossed yet? Considering how things have gone the past few games, maybe good ol’ Showtime should pick up his top hat and cane and take to the field to try and fire this team up.

He’s pretty calm in the press, but I have a feeling his guys are hearing it after the last road trip. Perhaps finally just unload on the ump at some point in the Chicago series and publically show that he’s fed up.