FOUR QUESTION JOB INTERVIEW
The four question
job interview for pitchers - Do you pass the test?
Don't plan to set
a table on your baseball future unless you can answer at least
three of those four questions yes. And don't plan on a long
future unless you can say yes to all four. Look at the art of
pitching like a table with power control, toughness and intelligence
as it's four legs. Take away one of those legs and the table
can remain standing but take away two or more of those legs
and you won't be a winning pitcher at any level, let alone get
a date to the show.
Are you fast
enough?
Power of course as
Coach Bagonzi says is the Holy Grail of baseball. And power
is important; if you're not a flame thrower, you better at least
have a respectable enough fastball that people don't say nice
change up when you throw it. But power by itself isn't enough.
Randy Johnson always threw hard and was always tough, but until
he got a couple more legs under his table (control and smarts)
he was just a fearsome pitcher with a mediocre record.
The reason why scouts
are most apt to fall in love with a flame thrower has to do
with their belief that all the rest of it can be taught; that
over time the kid who has a gift for throwing bullets is apt
to develop a few more legs to stand on. The statistic laureate
of baseball, Bill James has shown there is some truth to this
(those pitchers with the highest strikeout to win ratios one
year are the ones most likely to improve the following year).
The ability to throw
a ball hard and fast has a genetic quality but the truth of
the matter is, we all have a fastball hidden within us. It just
takes the right mechanics to find it.
Are you in
control of the ball enough?
If you can't get the
ball over the plate, you won't succeed at any level. But then
there's control and there's control. Can you paint the outside
corner? Can you keep it down and out of the hitters happy zone?
If you've got good stuff, you may be able to get away with mediocre
control. But it's not Pedro Martinez's fastball that makes him
so lethal; it's his ability to put it wherever the heck he pleases,
whenever he pleases.
Good control is something
any pitcher can develop. You don't hear many stories of control
pitchers suddenly developing power at age 30. But it's not that
unusual for the power pitcher in the autumn of his career to
finally discover control and with it a new capacity for winning.
Control requires
absolutely sound mechanics: doing things in an exact way every
single time, and if you think a little laxity is okay when it comes
to mechanics you better check out Coach's Rule Of Seven.
Are you tough
enough?
Scouts deciding between
a warrior with little talent and a clueless kid who can throw
bullets, will pick the bullet-thrower most every time. Yet,
there are a certain group of pitchers who seem to spend most
of their careers on the happy side of luck, but chances are
what they have is pluck rather than luck.
Some kids want to
disappear into the grain of the bench during the last inning
of a tight game, others beg to come into the game, saying
let me at 'em coach, let me at 'em. And while toughness
is something a player seems to either come pre-packaged with
or not, it is something that can be learned. Although it's probably
a heck of a lot easier to teach it in Little League than at
any other time, as the older we get, the more used to our limitations
we become.
Being tough is about
finding out what motivates you, it's about knowing what you
have to work with and what the other guy can beat you with,
and then not giving in. The toughest pitchers are those who
know just who they are when they get to the mound and they've
discovered that nobody is more worthy of winning than they are.
And being tough isn't just about scowling and looking mean.
Are you tough enough to stick to your game when providence seems
to be abandoning you? Are you tough enough to keep practicing
your mechanics day after day after day, forever?
Are you smart
enough?
Ted Williams call
it baseballic intelligence. It's about knowing the game,
knowing the batter, knowing the field, knowing the umpire, knowing
the situation, knowing yourself. Are you foolish enough to challenge
the Paul Bunyan of your league with a thigh high fastball with
runners on second and third? Are you foolish enough to walk
the ninth batter on breaking balls when he hasn't even shown
he can hit your fastball? Are you smart enough to keep yourself
in shape all winter, listen to the advice of those who know
more than you, take care of an irritated arm before it becomes
a sore one?
Nobody plays into
their late thirties without this leg on their table. Are you
smart enough to know that mechanics is your lifeblood, that
without mechanics you're just a fast ball waiting for a blown
out arm, a journeyman who at his best is just good enough to
lose? Are you smart enough to know that the truth of any pitch
lies in its spin?
Good Mechanics
X Practice = Success
You might have noticed
that the one thing that all four of those legs touch on as surely
as the legs of a table touch on the floor is mechanics. And
why do we preach mechanics above and beyond all else, because
tell us of one other things that cures sore arms, improves control,
builds speed and develops confidence? But then you already know
that. You wouldn't be reading this page, you didn't think that
there was a way to improve your game, a Way of Pitching.
Great Mechanics is the Way of Pitching.
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