▲ 12 r/slowpitch
What's the benefit of a flat swing plane?
Let me start by saying I didn't grow up playing organized baseball or softball, and came to slow pitch pretty late in life (a season in my mid-20s, a bunch of years of nothing, and then recently coming back to it in my late 40s). So anything I know is basically coming from things I've read or videos I've watched and a little bit of game and batting practice experience. I'm also a giant nerd who's probably got a touch of undiagnosed autism, and technical explanations are my jam.
What's the point of a flat swing plane to hit a ball that's coming in at a fairly steep downward angle, and we usually (depending on situation) want to hit it at least slightly upwards? It seems to me if we want the vector of the ball to be somewhere between "over the heads of the infielders" and "over the outfield wall," we want the bat path to be as close as possible to that vector. If it's flat, and we're hitting slightly under the ball, some of the force vector is lost and turns into spin (not that some backspin is a bad thing).
My assumption is that we lose power from our swing by trying to adjust the plane upwards, and flat is the best happy medium between the classic baseball "chop" swing and trying to golf the ball, but I'm hoping an experienced hitter has a good explanation of why this is so.
u/ThatLeviathan — 16 hours ago
▲ 3 r/masonry
What product should I use to repair the parging on the exterior of my 1920 fieldstone foundation?
This is basically at (slightly above and below) grade. The stones are locked in place and don't move, so the foundation seems perfectly stable, the parging has just broken off.
My internet sleuthing has given me tons of conflicting and useless information. I've seen recommendations for Natural Hydraulic Lime 3.5, but nothing under that name seems to be available in my area (Mid-Atlantic USA). I've also seen "Type S" recommended on reddit, but that's a structural mortar and this isn't a load bearing application.
I just need to point, scratch, brown, and finish, right? Can I do all that with one product? Which one? Thanks!!!
u/ThatLeviathan — 2 months ago
▲ 9 r/hebrew
Biblical Hebrew - Why is there a patach under the yod in וַיַּרְא ("and he saw") instead of a hireq?
Kutz and Josberger’s "Learning Biblical Hebrew" has me translating texts before fully understanding verb conjugation, and this one flummoxes me. The prefix for third person masculine singular imperfect in the Qal stem is יִ, yod with a hireq. I can find, despite frantic googling, no explanation for why this word uses יַ, yod patach. Obviously the waw-consecutive adds the dagesh to the yod; does it also change the class of the vowel? I can’t find any indication that waw-consecutive does this, and every example I find has וַיִּ. What gives?
Edit to add: I see the same behavior in the word וַתַּהַר, "and she was pregnant." Both verbs’ roots end in a heh (ראה and הרה) that gets dropped, so it must just be a type of verb the book hasn’t covered yet?
u/ThatLeviathan — 2 months ago