John R Harris

Metal Ropes John R Harris

John Harris may seem an unlikely source of information about hitting a baseball. Though he taught everything from Greek and Latin to English Composition for decades at various colleges, he had no guru other than Charley Lau to supplement his boyhood knowledge of baseball once he himself became a father. And Lau was a great starting point... but twenty-first century coaches all seemed to want power over contact. John soon found that the "cutting edge" lessons of costly videos and instructors were echo chambers for the same cliches, not insightful studies of the art of hitting. Particularly to boys of smaller build, the new baseball establishment offered little hope. But what about "stickers" like Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Edd Roush, and so many others who batted around or above .400 a century ago? Had they nothing to tell us? In his earlier books, John reveals that they whisper quite a few secrets if we listen. Or they would, if our game hadn't been transformed by the metal bat. Maybe old-school tactics simply won't work with an alloy stick. In the pages of Metal Ropes, John convinces us that this isn't so. Adjustments, of course, are necessary; but front-foot hitting, cutting straight through the pitch at a slightly downward angle, hitting the other way, spreading the hands, shuffling the back foot forward, keeping the hands from loading too high and rearward, creating and using "kinetic loops"... these are just a few of the nuggets that John has mined from the past for use in today's game. Though many coaches will reject his suggestions, the minute perceptiveness behind them points us toward a true science of hitting. New to this edition: over three dozen more illustrative photos, a clearer progression from subject to subject, new chapter divisions to isolate particular issues, and a special chapter analyzing the easiest and most productive Deadball swing for a novice to learn.