Abstract
In baseball batting, it's important to send a high speed ball. To do it, batters are required to accelerate bat head hugely and to hit a ball accurately in space and in time. This study focused on mistimed batting. Four hypotheses are tested: mistimed batting occurs due to (1) the influence of the ball image thrown previously, (2) delayed start of the swing, (3) delayed arrival of the bat at the ideal impact position because the bat head speed didn't increase enough before impact, and (4) delayed arrival of the bat at the ideal impact position because swing trajectory was longer. Six collegiate baseball players were asked to hit pitched balls of three different speeds (120km/h, 130km/h, 140km/h) toward the center field in 2 conditions. In the first condition, they hit several balls of a given speed repeatedly until they think they hit the ball in the way they evaluate best. In the second condition, they hit 35 balls thrown at various speeds without being informed of the ball speed. Ball projection order was pre-determined by the examiner to include five patterns: (1) 10km/h up (2) 20km/h up (3) 10km/h down (4) 20km/h down (5) Speed keep. The results showed that mistimed batting occurred most frequently at 140km/h fast ball and the factor 2 was most common reason for it. This result supports the instruction that baseball coaches often says "you should swing early."
