Without revealing the authors, we presented 4 essays on the topic of Error Spotting and Hitting Correction and asked for the WebBall community to vote. While the total vote tally was less than hoped for, the trend and the winner was clear.

WebBall congratulations Bill Mooney of BioForce Baseball in Oregon for his insights and clear victory.

Question 1 
Which of the authors is (are) most in line with the approach you take now with hitters?

While Bill Mooney took the lead, we were kind of surprised by the number of people who choose the other 3 authors as having the currency they did. We say this because the simplicity and elegance of the Tommy Ganz approach is so different from the revolution sparked by Perry Husband, and the importance placed on the "Language" of hitting by Dave Kirilloff. In our view none of these authors is particularly conventional - that's why we choose them.
Question 2 
Which author(s) best helped you appreciate the difference between error-spotting and correcting?

This, we think, is where Bill Mooney jumped into an uncatchable lead - his essay proved clearest in explaining the distinction between diagnostics and treatment. That truly is one of the biggest challenges for the hitting coach - if you don't have a clear idea of the problem, your suggested fix will not work.


Question 3 
Which author(s) gave you new instructional insights that you'll actually use?

One of the keys to the relative success of 3 of the 4 authors on this question has to do with the instructional approach taken. Perry Husband went deeper into aspects of flaw identification, but chose not to provide simple fixes. In other words, he did not make it as easy for the coach to simply say "do this, do that". It's a philosophical difference that we appreciate, but we also understand why it was a challenge to the reader. In contrast many more people liked Dave Krilloff's comparison with the pitching coach (we did too) and that's reflected in his relatively strong 2nd place showing throughout.


Question 4 
Who significantly changed your mind about how you coach/instruct?

This may be the most stunning result in our view. In fact we are extremely disappointed that almost half the voters did not feel their minds had been changed. Most stunning of all is the low vote for Perry Husband who has pretty much changed how all of us should be thinking about pitcher-batter match-ups and what's really important for a hitter to get right. But the tribe has spoken.



Question 5 
Which essay most deserves to win the 2010 WebBall Hitting Challenge?

While every author had supporters who believed he should win, clearly Bill Mooney was chosen most often.

Note: Even though we continued to offer "none" as an option, most voters in the end were willing to give a nod to one or another of the authors. This is, at the very least, an acknowledgement that all 4 instructors put good effort into their essays.