Where to learn baseball?

General Pitching Topics
#1

Hi, I’m SKOLI! Some of you may remember me via my previous post on “how to start pitching”… thanks for all your advice. I’m not joking. Brief synopsis of the previous post: I AM A TOTAL BEGINNER. I HAVE ZERO EXPERIENCE WITH BASEBALL. I’VE NEVER EVEN TOUCHED A BAT BEFORE. (i bought a glove three days ago though… yay!)

However, I forgot who told me to, but one of the replies was, “get a coach.” I thought about this idea, and I concluded that it was a brilliant one. WHY? Aside from basic improvements I could do to myself (push-ups, sprinting, long distance, lunges, playing catch to get the basic feel of baseball… etc), I can’t get better at the actual GAME. Let’s say I have a nice bat and a tee, a net, or whatever players use to train. I can practice hitting that ball all the time, but since I don’t know the correct way to bat, I won’t get much from the practice! Without being familiar with the stance, steps, etc etc etc, techniques, mechanics… I can’t really bat in a real game. Same goes for pitching. Just today, I kept throwing the ball at a wall, to try to improve my throwing distance (which is pathetic). I didn’t know the correct grip for the ball, nor did I know exactly how to throw it (I can’t even THROW, so forget pitching for the moment). Let’s say I’m playing real baseball. I don’t know how to gracefully slide on the bases. Am I making my point here? I NEED AN INSTRUCTOR! :twisted:

I’ve decided to join a nearby little league, but it appears that I must wait until December to join. I’m getting frantic, because of many reasons. First of all, I realize that I started extremely late to even consider COLLEGE BASEBALL (forget mlb at the moment), so every day wasted is a tremendous waste. Not only that, I have this crazy, burning desire to practice/play baseball the correct way ASAP. Finally, SPRING BREAK IS HERE. THIS IS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO BEGIN MY BASEBALL JOURNEY, because I can take this break to my advantage and begin baseball lessons.

Where, oh WHERE can I get baseball lessons? The “find a pitching coach” tab on this site scares me, because of two reasons. One: These people seem to be willing to teach slightly EXPERIENCED people who at the very least, know how to throw a baseball of some distance. Two: I think they teach ONLY pitching.

Where/from who/how can I get baseball lessons? As you can tell, I need to start from SCRATCH. I live in the Long Beach, CA area, if this information might help you.

#2

found this by googling “pitching instructor long beach”

http://www.allstarkidssports.com/lessons.htm

hope this helps :slight_smile:

#3

Hey, skoli, don’t be scared. There are quite a few excellent pitching coaches who will be very happy to take rank beginners such as yourself in hand and teach them all they need to know, and that includes active major leaguers or those who recently retired from the game. You just don’t want to get mixed up with the cookie-cutter brigade —guys who have one way of teaching pitching and persist in trying to get everybody to do likewise.
And some of those really good coaches will teach more than just pitching. As my old pitching coach used to say, “There’s more to pitching than just throwing the ball and daring the batter to hit it if he can.” There are things like fielding one’s position—it’s a fact that when a pitcher steps off the rubber he (or she) becomes a fifth infielder and has to be able to do all the things an infielder does. There’s strategic pitching, which has many angles to it. There are the mental and psychological aspects of the game. And a person as motivated as you are is sure to learn all these things quickly. I wish you all the best. :slight_smile: 8) :baseballpitcher:

#4

The coaches listed on Find A Pitching Coach are usually willing to teach athletes of all experience levels. The best thing to do is find one in your area and call them and ask them about their philosophies. Some of them coach things besdies just pitching :slight_smile: