Long overdue but the sportswriters snubbed him for 10 years because Kent was too much of an individual and didn’t kiss their collective back sides……Great player. Great thinker at the plate and in the field. Great clutch hitter (rbi guy). Intense competitor. No performance enhancing stuff. Honest/straight shooter. Played for the great Bob Milano, who he just credited in an interview with impressing on him the importance of focusing on just making hard contact and RBI’s……lessons lost on virtually all current MLB players, who go for the HRs with ridiculous launch angle (uppercut) swings. A great representative of baseball, family and Cal. Go Bears!!!
Great points. Yeah, I remember when I played, we were not taught the lock and load upper cut technique so much as level-cut hard contact, even imagining a slightly downward swing that by virtue of gravity would have the head of the bat come down through the strike zone. In LL, it was good enough to lead the league in batting average lol.
Exactly. I was taught the same thing. That swing maximizes hard contact, hard line drives or ground ball and if u get it up in the air it’s got serious back spin to left, right or center so the ball carries much better. I hit .383 at Cal (little before Kent) using that approach and getting RBI’s with enough power. Sad that players over past 30 years have been taught the launch angle uppercut, supposedly to increase home run production…..but it dramatically increases strike outs and pop ups: the bat is in the strike zone a fraction of the time and ur bat has to arrive at exactly the right moment and a hole in your swing is created, then exploited by good pitchers: and often it’s top spin created which creates a phenomenon where the ball dives to the ground instead of carrying. Glad you commented. I love talking about hitting. Go Bears
Thank you Justin for covering baseball. Cal is going to have a great pitching staff this year of both experienced and young arms, and Coach Neu is tremendous with pitchers being a former winning pitcher in CWS and multi year MLB pitcher. And he’s very calm and supportive with the players. If you haven’t introduced yourself to him you should: tell him Neil Cummings sent you (lol).
I still have my 1992 Cal College World Series T-shirt from our trip to Omaha in ‘92 to see that great Cal team. Pa Chitwood played for Wolfman back in the day.
Was hoping to see this post! Played for both the Dodgers and Giants so can bridge both fanbases. Go Bears!
Long overdue but the sportswriters snubbed him for 10 years because Kent was too much of an individual and didn’t kiss their collective back sides……Great player. Great thinker at the plate and in the field. Great clutch hitter (rbi guy). Intense competitor. No performance enhancing stuff. Honest/straight shooter. Played for the great Bob Milano, who he just credited in an interview with impressing on him the importance of focusing on just making hard contact and RBI’s……lessons lost on virtually all current MLB players, who go for the HRs with ridiculous launch angle (uppercut) swings. A great representative of baseball, family and Cal. Go Bears!!!
Great points. Yeah, I remember when I played, we were not taught the lock and load upper cut technique so much as level-cut hard contact, even imagining a slightly downward swing that by virtue of gravity would have the head of the bat come down through the strike zone. In LL, it was good enough to lead the league in batting average lol.
Exactly. I was taught the same thing. That swing maximizes hard contact, hard line drives or ground ball and if u get it up in the air it’s got serious back spin to left, right or center so the ball carries much better. I hit .383 at Cal (little before Kent) using that approach and getting RBI’s with enough power. Sad that players over past 30 years have been taught the launch angle uppercut, supposedly to increase home run production…..but it dramatically increases strike outs and pop ups: the bat is in the strike zone a fraction of the time and ur bat has to arrive at exactly the right moment and a hole in your swing is created, then exploited by good pitchers: and often it’s top spin created which creates a phenomenon where the ball dives to the ground instead of carrying. Glad you commented. I love talking about hitting. Go Bears
Thank you Justin for covering baseball. Cal is going to have a great pitching staff this year of both experienced and young arms, and Coach Neu is tremendous with pitchers being a former winning pitcher in CWS and multi year MLB pitcher. And he’s very calm and supportive with the players. If you haven’t introduced yourself to him you should: tell him Neil Cummings sent you (lol).
I still have my 1992 Cal College World Series T-shirt from our trip to Omaha in ‘92 to see that great Cal team. Pa Chitwood played for Wolfman back in the day.
Need Neu to work his magic on the ‘pen.