The most peculiar stance that I've ever seen, but it worked. Most players in Cobb’s era stood up straight. His exploits are legendary. Ott employed a high leg kick to initiate the weight shift needed to produce his power. The video below shows Ott taking several swings with his unique leg kick. For a ballplayer the search for a batting stance is a kind of search for athletic identity. During his all-star years the man was the master of the infield single due to that motion. Not many players have a stance that combines pilates and intimidation. That always makes for great TV. Seattle Mariners news from FanSided Daily, Brian Orakpo: I’m Going To Rip It Up This Year, Jose Calderon: Mavs Don’t Need A Star Center, Velcro straps on his gloves were pulled and retightened, waggled the bat so hard it danced in front of his helmet lip, MLB Opening Day: 1 reason every team could win the World Series, Blue Jays' Chris Colabello Refuses to Do 8-Pound Mac & Cheese Challenge for $15K, The Cleveland Indians are selling a hot dog with Fruit Loops and mac 'n' cheese (Photo), Mets' Matt Harvey upset with media coverage of bladder infection. Milt May stretched the bat two to three feet above his head as he waited in the box, almost as if he was raising a broom to the rafters. Yet somehow he maintained balance. His body looked like a question mark retreating from the mound, coiled and ready to explode into the pitch. Open Batting Stance. If your accountant was this fidgety you might consider closing your account. The A’s tried him for a year until they too got rid of his “crazy ideas.”. Sadaharu Oh was a physical match for Ott, built almost identical, and also a left-handed hitter. On the field, Ott looked like nothing special, and off the diamond he didn’t seem any different than the average man on the street. Batting stances are unique to each hitter. There were players who liked to shake the bat a lot, like Gary Sheffield and Vlad Guerrero. Ala Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, “Stan The Man” kept his feet close together, but he tucked himself back into a closed configuration. Batting Stance Extreme Change? ... one pitch, then open up on the next. It’s their one moment to stand apart from the team and strut. The man never seemed to have gloves that fit. But the strangest batting stance of the 1970s belonged to John Wockenfuss, a utility player primarily for the Detroit Tigers. Jay Buhner of the Mariners is one of the more notable hitters that uses the open stance. But his batting stance helped him become one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. So, to answer the question, … And the center field TV camera angle of batter vs pitcher we’re so used to know didn’t exist. A few hitters had unusual stances. Batista was the Usher of open stance batting. Boy was it fun to watch. No matter what he did, Yaz hit: the Hall of Famer retired with more than 3,000 hits and 400 home runs. Was there ever a more nonchalant batter than Zeile? It is important for your weight to be on your back foot, with your front foot planted, so you can get your whole body behind your swing. Rather than try to explain it, here’s a photo: Tony Batista had an extreme stance, and we’ll share another photo here because words don’t do it justice: Cal Ripken Jr. has explained that a “batting stance is just a starting point” in the entire process of the swing. Ben Liebman is a writer for FanSided partner BroJackson.com. Lau convinced Brett, Hal McRae and others in the organization like Al Cowens and Willie Wilson to adopt his methods. Or maybe it was something else. And as noted earlier, most hitters have their own style that is unique to them. He looked extremely uncomfortable. Keep Your Eyes on the Pitcher. Please don’t smash me. A smart player, Henderson realized with his speed that if he could get on base he could take control of the game. Why did the Sox part with Bagwell? by Prue0016 Plays Quiz not verified by Sporcle . Yastrzemski and Ripken were not afraid to change things up to get out of a slump. Baseball Almanac is pleased to present a comprehensive chart of ballplayer batting stances. Phil Plantier Your email address will not be published. Kevin Pietersen: Another modern-day batting great, Pietersen too had an unusual batting stance and … Sheffield created the ultimate whiffle ball swing. But there were also taller guys like Elbie Fletcher, Augie Galan, and Tennessee Roy Cullenbine who consistently ranked near the top in walks. Of all the great players in baseball history, the two that are best known for tinkering with their batting stances are Carl Yastrzemski and Cal Ripken Jr. The open setup adds more movement to the stride and talent to land in the correct position. People suffering from OCD–and by the look of reality TV that means most of us–found their hero in Nomar. When the pitch arrived, he’d pull his arms into hitting position and uncoil his body as he stepped into the baseball. Football is so uniform that you can’t take your helmet off while on the field. He won his first batting title the following year. The bat came up slightly and the Yankee slugger followed through with great emphasis. A video from the 1932 World Series shows Ruth moving his hands so that the bat seems to be turning, as if he was churning butter. It’s been more than a century since Babe Ruth took his first swing in the big leagues. A right-handed batter, “Fuss” pulled his front left foot in so it was directly in front of his back left foot, as if he were walking a tight rope. Aaron Rowand used what became called “The Drunk” — he stood with his legs extremely far apart and leaned back and to the side awkwardly, looking like he was going to tip over. But eventually, a few smart folks inside the game noticed that some players got more walks than others. After failing in the first innings of the match, Alam's remarkable 139 in the second innings impressed the Pakistani fans. It was copied by many other big leaguers, even hitters who were known for their power. The answer is probably talent. The foot closest to the mound is pulled away from home plate. Gaedel was only 43 inches tall and he had no intention of swinging his (plastic) bat. The early 1970s saw Yaz mess with his batting stance almost every spring. He pulled his upper body back in a closed fashion, but that was only part of the strangeness. I won’t list them all here (you can see them on his wikipedia page), but the two most important are: (1) a good weight shift and (2) having the bat in launch position as soon as the front foot touches the ground. It was probably a natural physical response to a pitch coming in at high speeds, an attempt to accentuate a weight shift. 3) He kept his feet pretty close together, less than a foot apart. Of course the Hulk eventually changes back into a normal man, but Juan had until his next cycle ran out before that was a problem. Walks were extremely rare and not encouraged. When the pitch arrived, Ruth moved his mammoth frame forward toward the baseball, putting every ounce of his body into his swing. He writes for several websites from his home near Lake Michigan. Not by big leaguers, but by players at all levels. So why didn’t more players try it? In the 1970s that changed. Lau was a catcher in the Detroit organization in the 1950s when he realized his approach to hitting wasn’t working. Craig Counsell. 5. Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns — like the Babe a left-handed hitter — used Ruth’s stance for a few years with success, but then returned to his favored style. Early in his career, Yaz employed a common stance: feet a little more than shoulder width apart, bat held high and back and well away from his rear left shoulder. He hunched himself down into a “C” in the batters’ box from the left side, with his head peering over his front shoulder, almost Musial-like. Dan is the author of three books on baseball. There were four notable things about Cobb’s stance: 1) He kept his hands very low, below his waist, tilting the bat toward the catcher on a 45 degree angle. 2) He held his hands one to three inches apart on the bat handle. How about Billy Hamilton or Dan Brouthers? This was the stance Yaz used in 1967 when he won the Triple Crown while leading the Red Sox to the pennant. Rate 5 stars Rate 4 stars Rate 3 stars Rate 2 stars Rate 1 star . It worked pretty damn well: Musial won seven batting titles. In the 1970s, Oscar Gamble stuck his backside out and leaned across the plate, and Mickey Rivers did something similar, tightening his body into a ball, sort of like Pete Rose, with an added bat wag. In many ways it was a knee-jerk reaction by a front office trying to win a World Series. Certain batting stances entice us -- with either efficacy or eccentricity -- to the point of emulation (though nobody emulates quite so well as the one and only Gar Ryness, aka “Batting Stance Guy”). As late as 1882 the pitcher could not release a pitch from above his hips. This article is about the history of batting stances and the players who had famous stances. Even though pitchers were standing much closer to the plate (45 feet in some cases), the rules favored the hitter because pitchers couldn’t and didn’t throw the ball hard, and their tosses were meant to be reasonable offerings. Some players like to be calm at their starting point, like Cobb standing with his feet together and almost still, while others, like Dave Winfield, liked to move their feet and body (“dancing with the pitcher”) as the pitch was en route. The Baseball Egg weekly email newsletter contains news, factoids, trivia, photos, and links to articles you can’t find anywhere else. Unlike Foxx and the Babe, Ott was a small man, weighing in at 170 pounds and standing just five foot nine inches tall. Build your custom FanSided Daily email newsletter with news and analysis on Seattle Mariners and all your favorite sports teams, TV shows, and more. Brett was so successful that Lau called him his “Frankenstein Monster.” Brett changed his batting stance late in 1975, leaning far back on his left leg like a “forward slash”. Prior to 1887, a batter could call for a pitch to be either “high” or “low.” The pitcher was required to deliver a pitch somewhere above or below the batters’ waist. Most notable was Kansas City third baseman George Brett, who hit .390 the year the book came out, the highest average since Ted Williams in 1941. The stance was so iconic that his statue in Minnesota is depicting him in his trademark stance. Wockenfuss also held the bat out in front of his chest with his fingers extended and wiggling, as if playing a flute. And Cobb bent over so he could position his head closer to the plate, better to see the inside part of the strike zone. Downing was inducted into the Angels Hall of … As a result, Rickey walked 2,190 times, setting a record (later topped by Barry Bonds). Now take your front foot and place it five-to-seven inches toward the pitcher. It was a batting practice fastball league. Chart note: All the possible batting combinations are included on the chart and interesting facts are found at the bottom of the page. He worked on hitting from an extreme crouch, leaving very little room for the pitcher to throw a strike. Among the many stances that are used for batting in baseball, the square stance is the most commonly used stance. Unit number thirty plan high fly ball deep left field that ball is way back home run. Oh used what he called the “flamingo” leg kick, an exaggerated version of Ott’s stance, in which he lifted his front leg high off the ground and curled it close to his back foot. Tony Batista. You gotta have your own way of doing it, his swing and his stance. (Ichiro Suzuki later used the same approach with his feet in the batters’ box.) When he retired he ranked first in NL history in homers and third only to Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx all-time. Here is where they whip out their personal stamp on the game. Shorter ballplayers naturally have a smaller strike zone. Julio Franco emerged in the 1980s with his high extended arms and his method of pointing the barrel of the bat at the pitching mound over his head. He hit four more home runs in the World Series, helping the Giants to a title in 1933 when he clubbed a pair of homers and had seven hits in five games in the Fall Classic. It was so unusual that nearly every time he went to the plate the announcer mentioned it. Before a hitter goes into the “heel down” position, their style is unlikely to have a negative impact on their hitting success. 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