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The column, Pitching 101, was inspired by Pitching and Catching classroom meetings throughout my professional career.  The content is based on my experiences and my journey and these are my opinions.

I get asked a lot of questions about baseball, mainly pitching. I was a Professional Baseball Pitcher for 11 years in three different MLB Organizations where I was able to gain a huge amount of knowledge on pitching from some pretty impressive instructors.  Some of those being; John Farrell, Scott Radinsky, Charles Nagy, and Steve Belcher just to name a few, and I have also picked the brain of Giants Gold Glove Catcher Kurt Manwaring (1992) a time or two. Let's get started...

WHEN RAW ABILITY MEETS A WALL

I'd like to think I had plenty of raw natural ability on the mound. In this context raw ability refers to what our grandfathers would commonly say as "God-given-talent". For me, professional scouts had a field day using their 'scout talk' when describing me - Left-handed northern arm, long and lanky, loose, free and easy, project-able. Because of those raw abilities I was fortunate enough to play professional baseball for over a decade.

Unfortunately, playing high school baseball in northern Pennsylvania didn't offer up too many challenges on the baseball field.  This is attributed to the small communities and lack of interest in the game. To offer a little more insight, my hometown had roughly 1200 residents and at the time my high school had 300 kids grades 7-12.  If you went 20 miles in any direction you were faced with the same issue; small schools and little ability to produce competitive sports programs.  That being said, I experienced a lot of success and was very dominant. In four years as a starting pitcher my earned run average (ERA) was .42 with nearly 400 strikeouts and only 28 walks.

On June 6th, 2002, I sat anxiety ridden as I awaited my life-long dream to hear my name selected as part of the MLB draft. To my surprise, I was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the 3rd round.  Three days later I graduated from high school and on June 11th I started my professional baseball career. From high school athlete to professional baseball player was a lot to swallow and took time to really set in. However, one realization set in rather quickly, and that was my ability to quickly hit a rock solid wall. 

This so-called wall I am speaking of, was made of bricks, several layers high and this wall seemed to overcome me.  I faced a consistent dose of amazing hitters every single outing each pitch I threw.  I was giving up hard hits and homeruns which was something I wasn't accustomed to.  This struggle was not something I anticipated and was a tough pill to swallow.  However, the reality is, every good pitcher will face these very same struggles. So what do you do when you are faced with these challenges and your abilities are tested? 

For me personally, the answer was simple but it came in two phases. The first was accepting that there was an issue and taking full accountability. That's what we call honest self evaluation and unfortunately there's not enough of that going around today. Phase two was attacking the brick wall with everything I had. There's not an easy path to developing your skills but below I'll highlight the things that allowed me to bulldoze through that wall.

Knowledge Is Power. How many player's reading this truly know the game of baseball? I mean really know the game? How many understand everything there is to know about pitching? Sometimes the biggest change an athlete can make is becoming a true student of the game. A so-called expert of their craft. Here's a great example: You are an average high school pitcher and you have accepted that to be a fact. You have busted your tail in the weight room, you've done throwing programs and you've followed the advice of your coaches.  However, you're stuck and your growth appears to be at a standstill.  Instead of giving up this is where the player needs to become a student and truly learn the game. It is here where players study pitch counts and sequences, learn to attack hitters, understand their fastball, movement and location, body control, disrupting timing, holding runners... I could go on forever.  This type of knowledge will elevate even the most average of pitchers.  The catch is, it takes work and it's not easy to master, so players tend to throw in the towel.

Maximize Your Resources. We all have different levels of resources. Some players have a full-time pitching instructor with every training tool on the market.  Some only have a You Tube channel and a few cans of soup to do arm exercises. Whatever category you fall under you must understand your situation and maximize it. TIME and EFFORT are both free and extremely valuable. If you truly want to take your game to the next-level you can - it's that simple and its all up to you. 

Switch It Up. There comes a time when every athlete no matter the sport will have their abilities tested. In most cases there's three reasons why. First, the opponent is better than you (honest self evaluation) second; your true talent potential was reached and lastly, you have become complacent and it's time to make a change. It could mean a change with your current routine, instructors, strength and conditioning or possibly all three. For me, I realized during my rookie year in Professional baseball that I would need to make several changes in all domains of my life if I wanted to stay in the game. My training both physically and mentally, pre and post game preparations, eating habits, and social habits all had to positively change for me to become successful. Therefore, the question is; are you willing to make the necessary changes to see growth?

In all sports, specifically pitching, you will be faced with challenges, some more than others. I hope the strategies listed above that helped me can be of use to you in order to knock down the obstacles standing in your way.



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