Our goal here is to achieve as much speed and quickness as possible. Think of quickness as the start of your swing and the speed as how fast you are moving the bat through the hitting zone. So once again you have to make sure that you can move your bat through the zone fast enough to generate enough power. This is a standard grip. I started out using this grip and I have stuck with it my whole career. Like I said before I like to watch and learn from other players. There is a little move you can make sometimes that might help when you feel you can't get the ball in the air. When you are standing with your bat at the start of your swing, take your elbows and move them towards each other. Now this will break your finger alignment on the bat but that's O.K. With this hand placement on the bat the ball will go higher. When ever I am hitting good I will move my elbows more and more together. This technique will help you roll your wrists more so that you get that great trajectory. one of the reasons I have had so much success with hitting the ball so far is because how high I hit the ball. The higher the ball goes the farther it will go.

There have been other types of grips that other players use. And for the most part been very successful with it. In the last 10 or 15 years players like Carl Rose and Wendell Rickard have used the overlap grip. Other players have made attempts to use it. Some players think that is some new type of grip on the softball scene but believe me it's not. I use to play with a guy named Doc Booker. He played in the Cleveland area leagues for years. Played with Mama Jean's powerhouse in the PD Major in Cleveland. They had another player on the team that used the grip also. His name was Donnie Smith. He was a former Denver bronco football player.