You have it backwards. If you lengthen the span, you need to add reverse to keep the feel the same. Shorten it, add forward. But this is dependent on if your only goal is to change span. If you are going for a goal of pitch changes, that becomes the dominant factor. If I remember right, Bill Taylor devised a system. Starting out with a ball of a certain span and pitch (his example was 4.5" and 1/4" reverse), for every 1/4" increase in span you need to add 1/8" revese to keep the feel. So according to this system, your hand is at the same angle of gripping if you have a 4.25" span with 0 pitch as opposed to a 5" span with 3/8" reverse, even though it sounds like the 5" span should be harder to grip because of the reverse. Off of this kind of system is where you'd compare different pitches. The reason I even bring this up is because you mentioned lengthening span and adding reverse. If your driller follows the Bill Chart, then only effect you'd notice is the span difference. If you wanted to have a pitch change you'd need to adjust further.
Other than that, I really can't comment. I have no idea if your span is too short now, based on your descprition of your friend's longer spanned ball feeling better. But to me, from your description of knuckling the ball, going with the goal of reverse would probably enhance the problem since reverse would want to make your thumb come out easier and likely make you grip harder. Too bad there isn't a PJBT up your way soon otherwise we could talk further. Otherwise your driller would know better. There's two things you should do now: if he has one of those adjustable pitch balls, get him to set some combos and throw it into a beanbag or something. Or get an old ball you will never use and have him drill into in (Forget about plugging since you won't be using it) and test that out. Either way, good luck.
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- Andy
Edited on 3/5/2006 3:49 PM
