Yes, door-knocking alignment is not ideal and either is large knuckle alignment. Somewhere in between is the most effective grip and I'll tell you why a little farther down in this post. But first...

If the "door-knockers" are lined up, the bat is too far out in the fingers and leverage is lost, if the bat is too deep in the hands (the large knuckles lined up) then coordination is lost. Somewhere in between the two grips is ideal and here is why...

As coaches, one of the positions we analyze in hitters is what we call "contact," essentially when the hitter is making contact with the ball.

There are plenty of pictures available to get information about what an effective contact position looks like (and I've included one in this post) so lets take a look at what the hands are doing at contact.

A lot of people describe a "palm up, palm down" position at contact, and that will suffice for our argument here. Since Ted Williams is used as an example on this site make sure you take a look at Ted Williams' The Science of Hitting, (particularly pages 43 and 58) because there are some great pictures that depict what I'm about to describe here.

Throughout his book, Ted describes the leverage created from the "palm up, palm down" position when hitting a baseball. Any other variation creates a weak swing at contact.

Notice that if you were to point your index fingers in the "palm up, palm down" position at contact they would both point in the same direction.

THIS IS THE KEY TO GRIPPING A BASEBALL BAT!

Now keeping in mind that a hitter doesn't change his grip orientation once the swing has begun, he will however naturally tighten down on the bat as he approaches impact/contact with the ball.

So, when teaching young players (and yes, even older ones) how to grip a baseball bat don't worry about any knuckle alignment...

Simply tell them to grip the bat in their hitting stance (notice I deliberately said "hitting" and not "batting") and have them point their index fingers. If their grip is good, the index fingers will be pointing in the same direction.

This little test also cures most, "get your elbow up," "put your elbow down, "do this with your elbows," stuff you hear out of most would-be hitting coaches.

The vast majority of the time it is not the elbow position that is the problem, but the GRIP! Get the index fingers pointed the same direction and the elbows drop exactly into the best position to hit from.

Alright, back to the grip...

You'll find the "door-knockers aligned" grip makes the fingers point away from each other and not in the same direction we need for max leverage at contact.

The "larger knuckles lined up" grip makes the index fingers point across each other in opposite directions... again, a bad hand position for max leverage at contact.

Now, as far as where the whole "door-knockers" grip started I'm really not sure, but if you check out page 25 of "You Can Teach Hitting" you'll probably find where a lot of youth league coaches picked it up.

By the way, my good friend and coaching colleague Steve Williams is actually the one who introduced me to the "point the index fingers" test years ago and I'm glad he did because it is absolutely the simplest and most practical approach to teaching players how to grip a baseball bat.

For more baseball coaching tips visit the Dick Birmingham Sports Championship Baseball Drill Book at www.BaseballDrillBook.com