McGwire's hand-bye! coordination

JULY 14, 1998

In the Church of Hitting, there are many pews, but that wasn't always the case. Thirty years ago, the Church was ruled by the orthodoxy of a two-handed extension on follow-through. Hitters were required to hold on to a bat with two hands as if it were a ladder up from hell. Then a heretic former catcher, Charlie Lau, proclaimed his belief in a one-handed extension, calling for release of the top hand after contact. His theory caused much gnashing of teeth among the orthodox. A one-handed extension would reduce efficiency and power, they warned.

Mark McGwire extends with one hand. In the '90s, many of the game's best hitters embrace Lau's principles, but no convert is more significant than McGwire. Should he break Roger Maris' home run record, Lau's theory will be canonized, and McGwire's persistence in converting from the conventional twohanded technique he learned as a child will be rewarded.

"It's obvious to me McGwire's changed from the beginning of his career," says retired hitting instructor Walt Hriniak, a Lau disciple. "I'm glad he's taking advantage of Charlie's system. I was hoping it wouldn't go unrecognized. It matters because a lot of people thought Charlie was wrong. It's a fact that can't be denied."

I first heard of McGwire's conversion last spring, in a conversation with Mariners hitting coach Jesse Barfield, a former Blue Jays and Yankees outfielder. Barfield teaches a onehanded extension and has compiled a study showing that 85 percent of baseball's top hitters extend with one hand. (Of the others, half are lefthanded.) Barfield noticed McGwire going to a predominantly onehanded extension about three years ago.

"From a mechanical standpoint, he's better than he's ever been," Barfield says. "I remember scouting reports on him when I was with the Yankees: 'Don't pitch him down, he'll kill you. Get him up.'Now he's handling the high strike, because his swing is flatter through the zone as opposed to a big loop.

"I'm interested why he changed his stroke. He was a twohanded muscle guy. He didn't use to release. Last year, he hit two home runs at Pro Player (stadium). One, he released after contact and it was a monster shot. The other one, he held on with two hands, and it barely went up there."

In mid-June, I catch up with McGwire, three hours before a game at Comiskey Park, and relate Barfield's remarks. Politely, he fends off the topic. "I never talk technical baseball," he says. "There are things the media don't need to know. There are things my teammates don't know about. I just keep it to myself. In my mind. Someday when I'm a coach, I'll talk about it."

Is it accurate that a tophand release was a turning point for you? I ask.

He nods, reluctantly.

"I agree with that."

Why?

"It gives me full extension. Any hitting coach tries to teach kids full extension, but it doesn't happen overnight. It took quite a few years for me."

That is as far as McGwire goes. Even Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sheds a thin light on McGwire's "turning point," while emotionally acknowledging Lau, a mentor and friend. La Russa came under Lau's influence as a journeyman infielder with the A's in 1970. Lau spent most of the '70s as the Royals' hitting coach, molding George Brett and Hal McRae into elite hitters. When La Russa managed the White Sox in the early 1980s, he hired Lau. Carlton Fisk, struggling with a choppy Fenway Park swing, was Lau's last triumph. After Lau died of cancer, at 50, in 1984, the White Sox wore his initials on their uniforms for a year.

McGwire is descended from Lau through La Russa, his first manager as an A's rookie in 1987. Additionally, McGwire's hitting coach as a rookie was Bob Watson, who played under Lau with the Yankees in 1980 and '81.

"The great majority of Mark's swings, you'll see his top hand release," La Russa says. "Which is the ultimate irony for Charlie Lau. People thought what Charlie taught, taking the hand off, meant that you would obviously lose power. All he was saying was to hit through the ball and take the hand off at maximum point of extension so you can get more extension. Ted Williams was violently opposed to Charlie. He said he was teaching to go to the opposite field. He misunderstood. Charlie took guys who weren't home run hitters and raised their average 50 to 60 points by getting them to play the center of the field.

"What I'm not going to do is ask Mark, 'Did you start taking your top hand off?' The worst thing that can happen is to start thinking about it. He's got an idea of what he's doing. The more he does it without having to explain it . . . he's really got it working. It's a wonderful irony. I guarantee you that if that's the way it works in heaven, Charlie is going, 'Yeah, yeah.' "

That evening, McGwire faces White Sox rookie lefthander Jim Parque. With one out in the third inning, runners at second and third, no score, Parque elects to throw McGwire a 1-0 changeup. Everybody wearing a White Sox uniform cringes. The pitch is up and over the outer half of the plate. McGwire deposits it over the center field wall 409 feet away for home run No. 30. Tophand release is as clear as the full moon rising above the scoreboard.

If McGwire is to surpass Maris, then technique is important. However, to ascribe the feat merely to technique is as myopic as explaining "Layla" in terms of Clapton's guitar fingering. It will hinge equally on McGwire's savvy-understanding of pitchers and situations-some of which is traced to Lau through Watson, who retired as Yankees G.M. last February. McGwire lists Watson among his most influential teachers.

"I got him as a baby and had a chance to mold him," Watson says. "Charlie helped me more mentally than physically. That's what I tried to pass on to Mac. Charlie made you understand your strengths and weaknesses, and how they matched up with a pitcher's strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to stay within yourself. He'd rather see an 80 percent swing that was controlled than a 100 percent swing that wasn't.

"I taught Mac to hit through a fence rather than over it. Hit the ball hard, not far. He's so strong now, he doesn't have to swing hard. All he has to do is be on track, stay inside the ball and it goes 550 feet."

Early in McGwire's career, his approach was simplistic-"see the ball, hit the ball"-La Russa says. He was non-analytic on purpose, but no longer.

"The most dramatic thing that's happened with him is that he thinks at the plate," La Russa says. "When he came up, he didn't want to know who was pitching or think about his last at-bat. He's doing that now, and it's a kick for some of us who saw him early."

Through 1996, McGwire's favorite pitch to hit for a home run was the first one. In '97, his favorite counts were 1-0 and 2-1, and this season they are 1-2 and 2-2, suggesting a more mature approach.

Pitchers try a variety of stratagems-none too successfully. Conventional wisdom is to throw McGwire fastballs up and in. But his swing is so compact and quick he gets around on them.

White Sox pitching coach Nardi Contreras says Parque wanted to entice McGwire to fish for sinkers or changeups away. At the time, McGwire was hitting .205 against lefthanders. Contreras and Parque believed he was vulnerable to slow stuff that from a lefthander moves away from righthanded hitters. "But you can't miss your location because he hits mistakes," Contreras says.

Cardinals hitting coach Dave Parker claims McGwire guesses correctly 85 percent of the time, a figure other hitting experts question. It's clear, however, that when McGwire hits a homer, he attacks the pitch with such certainty he appears to know what is coming. Often, McGwire gets one hittable pitch in an at-bat, yet he seems to know when and what.

Even when he guesses wrong, Parker says, he may hit a home run, because of his prodigious strength. His strength enables him to drive a ball off the handle or end of the bat.

Lau postulated 10 "absolutes" for good hitting. Of the 10, McGwire ignores just one-using the whole field. Statistics show his "pull" tendency is 20 percent greater than in his early years. Of his 37 homers through last Wednesday, 28 were to left or left center and only one was to right or right center.

Watch McGwire hit. His wide stance is balanced over both feet, with a slightly swaying rhythm. His weight shifts from a firm back side to a firm front side, front toe closed, with a positive, aggressive motion toward the pitcher. His swing is tension-free, head down on the ball. Textbook Lau.

Lau's 10th and final directive was to "finish high." But how high is high? The mechanics of a once-heretical swing may carry McGwire higher than Lau could have imagined, to the Olympus of sluggers, batting cleanup behind Maris and Ruth.

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