The motivation for this post comes from seeing an article on Tim Lincecum's great mechanics. His mechanics are good but not great and I would never tell me kid to pitch like this. I would never tell a kid to imitate any great players stances or windups. They are freak athletes and that's why they are playing at that level. If I would tell my kid to look at a swing or windup I would show them a .230 hitter or a pitcher with a 4.5 ERA because those are the guys that have to do everything right to play at that level.
That being said when I was growing up I think I changed my batting stance at least once a week. If I had a couple hits with a particular batting stance I kept it... let it ride. If I had a bad day at the plate you better believe I was going to change it before my next game.
I chuckle about it now because not only was I changing my batting stance to emulate a favorite player but their stances were repeated for years and I was trying to do it in a day (most times without any batting practice).
I was a huge Braves (bandwagon) and Cardinals (not bandwagon) fan during my childhood and most of my stances were imitating my favorite players. Andres Galarragga, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Mark McGwire, and Brian Jordan were some of my most used stances. But if I saw a guy hit a home run that night on ESPN and I liked the stance I was going to use it the next day.
Obviously live pitching doesn't start until you're a little older but that doesn't mean I didn't try anything out. When Dontrelle Willis hit the scene I'm almost positive every kid tried their own variation of his windup. I tried the windups of Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Kevin Millwood, and Pedro Martinez.
Needless to say by the time I turned 12 or so my hitting instructor quickly got me out of this terrible habit. I'll leave you with batting stance guy...
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