Albert Pujols and Mark McGwire

Attached is a great video of Albert Pujols and Mark McGwire discussing hitting. In the video you can hear Albert talking about a couple of great points. First of all you can hear him talking about "staying inside" which I believe is one of the most over used terms in hitting because to creates a lengthened out bat path. You can hear him say that he is more focused on going down to the ball as opposed to "staying inside". The other thing he says that I really like is when he is talking about moving a runner over. Too many times coaches and hitters a like simply give up at bats by thinking that a groundball to the right side is what you are trying to accomplish in that situation. It's important to realize that a groundball to the right side should be considered a worst case scenario. What a hitter should be trying to do is drive the ball into the gap in right center. You can clearly hear Albert discussing this in the video. Finally check out how even when Albert is demonstrating his bat path to Mark how he uses and really extends with what is his top hand. To me this shows how important Albert considers this hand in the swing. This video is great because many proponents of the "rotational hitting theory" who want a hitter to swing in an upward plane use Albert as an example. However this video clearly shows that during his swing Albert's intention is to drive down to the ball.