{"id":7575,"date":"2010-04-16T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=7575"},"modified":"2010-04-15T19:59:42","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T18:59:42","slug":"web-pick-of-the-weel-hitting-the-ball-aint-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=7575","title":{"rendered":"Web Pick of the Week: Hitting the ball ain&rsquo;t easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6264\" title=\"Web-Pick\" src=\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/Web-Pick.png\" alt=\"Web-Pick\" width=\"128\" height=\"128\" \/>The Times has been serializing articles from the cricket bible Wisden this week, one of which is an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/sport\/cricket\/article7096583.ece\" target=\"_blank\">article by Michael Armstrong-James<\/a> about the process a batsman goes through in trying to hit a cricket ball delivered at rapid pace.\u00c2\u00a0 It caught my eye with the second paragraph where Armstrong-James notes that the time between a delivery leaving the quick bowler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand and the batsman playing a shot is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153about 400 milliseconds\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same amount of time that is often given for the similar situation of a batter hitting a fastball.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an interesting article and while some of the passages might not be of direct relevance from a baseball perspective, such as choosing shots and playing strokes, there certainly are bits that carry over.\u00c2\u00a0 I was particularly struck with the section about how difficult it is for players that have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reached full maturity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to change their bowling action or batting technique.\u00c2\u00a0 We regularly read about ballplayers tinkering with their swing or their pitching mechanics. Having to re-learn what must become an instinctive action is clearly a painstaking, and often unsuccessful, process.<\/p>\n<p>The article also fits nicely with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hardballtimes.com\/main\/article\/nuts-and-bolts-of-hitting-in-the-big-leagues-with-morgan-ensberg\/\" target=\"_blank\">piece on the Hardball Times website<\/a> where former Major Leaguer Morgan Ensberg, featured in a <a href=\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=7012\" target=\"_blank\">previous<\/a> Web Pick, discusses the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nuts and Bolts of hitting in the big leagues\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week&#8217;s web pick looks at an article from the latest edition of Wisden and some thoughts on hitting by Morgan Ensberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[85,86],"class_list":["post-7575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-cricket","tag-web-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7577,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions\/7577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}