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General Pitching Topics
#1

Let me start off with a story: last year was the first year I seriously wanted to pitch. I went to Fenway and watched Josh Beckett pitch; he became my favorite player and he inspired me to pitch. I was horrible last year, I had an era just south of 9. I had decent velocity and and little control. I had alot of movement but it just worsened my command problems. I decided that i needed to change to have a chance to pitch on varsity. I got the ■■■■■■■■■■■ DVD’s from Joe Fletcher and Jon Huizinga’s DVD. They changed my entire career.
This offseason, I worked my butt off and got much better. I mean I was working out for 1-2 hours intensely every day. I tinkered with my mechanics too. Well this season came and I was extremely confident coming into tryouts. I knew I had worked the hardest out of anybody I knew that I could succeed on varsity. Teammates complimented me on my work ethic and determination. Everybody seemed impressed by me, except my coach. He had me pitch off a mound once and didn’t even see me pitch. I had recently tinkered with my mechanics in opening up sooner to get more torque in my core and take stress off my arm. Even though I was still not completely comfortable with it yet, I had good late movement and good control. My change up was off the table. But despite all this I get cut. When I asked why he said that I was the hardest worker on the team yet I wasn’t talented enough. My teammates and I were surprised, I mean all my teammates told me I had the most heart out of anybody on the team.
The coach is a guy who when the players on varsity were freshman he though he knew if they would be good enough, I apparently wasn’t. So even though I work my butt off and other players on the team haven’t shown my passion for the game and that I am just as good as they are (and the fact that many off them have been caught doing stupid stuff off the field) yet he thought he knew that I couldn’t handle varsity.
I will not let this guy tell me I can’t succeed in baseball. I am going to get even better (I have already started to do the Jaeger Long Toss every other day) so I will be hopefully throwing in the mid 80’s (which would be about a 10 mph increase) by next season.
The problem is that I have a feeling that no matter how good I get he won’t take me on his team. I don’t necessarily want to play for him, if he retires and another coach takes his place (hopefully the B-Squad coach because I have a tremendous amount of respect for him). I am wondering what could I play instead of High School ball? I was thinking of Amateur and will be 18 next year so would they allow me to play? I live in minnesota so if anybody has any input please share.

Sorry for ranting about me getting cut.
Thanks

#2

That coach reminds me of Chuck Dressen, who at one time managed the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dressen considered himself an expert on pitching and pitchers—but what he knew, you could put on the head of a straight pin (such as is used in sewing) and have room left over. And he demonstrated this during the third game of that famous playoff against the N.Y. Giants in 1951. It was the ninth inning, and Don Newcombe was tiring—he had been pitching a whale of a ball game—so there was some activity in the Brooklyn bullpen. Dressen kept calling down to the pen to find out if anyone was ready; Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca had been warming up. Bullpen coach Clyde Sukeforth, who really should have known better, replied that Erskine was bouncing the ball in front of the catcher but Branca was rock-steady. And Dressen promptly said “Let me have Branca.” Big mistake. The next batter up for the Giants was Bobby Thomson, who owned Branca, had hit several homers off him during the season…
Erskine might have been a better bet, because a pitch that hits the dirt in front of the plate (a splitter?) can be difficult to hit. An even better choice might have been Clem Labine, but Labine was in the doghouse and Dressen wanted no part of him. So in came Branca. And on the 0-1 pitch…
You obviously would rather not have to deal with a “coach” who, let’s face it, just doesn’t like you. You mentioned possibly going with an 18-and-up team—I would suggest that you give that a try. The coach, or manager, or whoever runs that team probably has more experience, may even have pitched semipro or even pro ball at one time and would be more open to giving you a chance to show what you can do. 8)

#3

Thanks for the advice zita, I would actually like to play amateur since its better competition than on Varsity ball. But if the B-Squad coach takes over i will play varsity since the B-Squad coach doesn’t care if we win he only cares about are character and how we play the game.

#4

Where are you located? I know in my area of Illinois we have a big support for legion baseball during the summer. It is pretty good competition. You might want to look into that.

#5

I live in Rochester, Minnesota. We also have legion ball, but the high school varsity coach also coaches that so he won’t take me.