Golf and Baseball

     This is going to be a shot post today, I think or maybe not. To some of you outside the United States who don't enjoy the game of baseball, it may not even interest you. I totally understand that but I hope you will read this anyway.  I want to talk briefly about the golf swing as compared to the baseball swing.  I hope that this post will also bring about a discussion on the subject as well because I am not a professional and these are my opinions based on observations not hard science or kinetics.
     I was watching a baseball game on TV yesterday thinking about my golf blog and the game of golf, bringing me to think about the two game's similarities and differences. Baseball and golf are very similar in a lot of ways. Both require swinging a stick and hitting a ball.  Both the the ball and the sticks are of different sizes and the player in golf hits a stationary ball verses a moving ball with baseball.  The baseball of course is bigger than the golf ball. However, the basic premise on which the games are played are very much different in that in baseball you are trying to hit the ball as far as you can so as a person in the "field" misses the ball for a "hit".  In golf, you hit the ball with the  outcome being that you put that ball into a hole. Both are very simple descriptions of each game, but for my purpose here they will due. I am not going to explain a balk in baseball or a stymie in golf.
      I am fascinated by the baseball swing and the golf swing.  Taken on face value, they are very much the same. However they are very different in a lot of ways. One of the first things that I noticed as a difference is that with a pitched ball the angle of the bat swing in baseball has to change depending on the placement of the moving ball as it crosses home plate. A pitcher can vary the location of the pitches to a batter, so the ball in very rarely in the same place as it crosses the plate. The hitter has to make the adjustment of where he is going to swing at the ball. The swing plane changes depending on the location of the pitch.
     As we all know, golf is played with a ball that is smaller, but that ball is stationary. It doesn't move. To start a hole, you of course place the ball on a tee and the ball never moves until it is hit by the club. After that, the only variable from tee to green in the club that the ball is hit with depending on the distance to the hole and the kind of shot that is to be played.  The swing plane stays consistent.
     Let's talk a bit about the actual mechanics of the swing. Both swings show the player moving toward the target. The shoulders in golf stay on a level plane with a strong shoulder turn staying on that level plane. I understand this because the ball is not moving. Weight is moving toward the target as well in both swings but ultimately end up in different places.  In golf, the weight shifts forward to the front foot.  Baseball seems to be different in that the weight seems to wind up o+n the back foot.  This would be a reverse shift in golf.
     There are a couple of other things that caught my attention as well.  First of all, in baseball i have observed the hands are more active depending on pitch location. Hitting requires in a lot of instances a flipping motion with the hands depending on pitch location and type of pitch.  In golf, since you are hitting a ball that is not moving, hand action is pretty much the same and consistent only varying slightly by the type of shot you want to hit--draw or fade.
     Let's look at the action of the feet.  In baseball the batter's fee sometimes move and in a lot of cases come off the grown with a stride into the pitch. The weight exchange is in the whole lower body including the movement of the feet striding into the pitch.  The golfer's feet on the other had do move, but not that much.  The weight exchange is more in the thighs and hips, not striding into the ball. The feet are pretty much stationary except in some cases the raising of the heel.
     Let me make this clear.  These are only my observations.  I am a true lover of both sports. I didn't play much baseball when I was younger, being that chubby kid that was ether stuck playing catcher or right field--I did both by the way and hit pretty well. Golf was my sport and I have played a lot of it over the years. If you have an observation or a different opinion of what I have said, please respond as I would love to hear what you have to say.  How about other sports--Cricket anyone?

OK, so this post may have been a turkey, but at least I tried.  I love baseball and golf.