Mar. 30, 2001 Some good news for players and batting coaches as
baseball’s opening day approaches – physicists say they
shouldn’t worry about a player’s grip on the bat as it connects
with the ball. The sharp-eyed baseball fan will notice that some
batters, like the Yankees’ David Justice, remove one of their
hands during their swing – sometimes against the advice of
batting coaches. But now physicists are telling coaches and
players alike to rest easy - new research shows that the
released hand has nothing to do with how fast the ball leaves
the bat. In research published recently in the American Journal
of Physics, University of Illinois professor of physics Alan
Nathan says the grip on the bat during contact with the baseball
does nothing to affect the power delivered to the ball. Nathan
says that even if the hitters were to let go of the bat right
before contact, the batted ball would have the same speed and
trajectory. "Just prior to the collision with the ball, the bat
is already at its maximum speed,"