The “Check Swing”

I am old enough to remember when no one in Major League Baseball — I mean no one — ever checked their swing at the plate. Batters either decided to swing at the ball, or decided not to — as they started to swing.

I want to say this shift occurred sometime in the mid-80s… bats started to come off the batter’s shoulder towards the ball screaming in from the pitcher *before* the hitter had decided to swing. This was a fundamental shift in the game of baseball — the beginning of the modern cat & mouse game between hitters & pitchers.

The “Check Swing” coming into fashion gave birth to the defensive swing… a rip-cord emergency swing that was never possible before…