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What Makes
the Baseball Move?
As I sit at my desk
this morning reflecting on the week a little, I
thought I would share with all of you what we have
been talking about and working on in the academy
this week.
See, each week we
focus on a different discipline of pitching.
Not like a lot of
instructors that have the athlete come in to their
shop and start throwing and pitch off the mound,
throw a few fastballs, curves, changeups and before
you know it, the lesson is done…..thank you very
much, come again please.
In our academy this
week, we are focusing on movement. Movement can mean
a lot of things. Movement of the fastball. Movement
of the curve, the change up, and any other pitch you
can think of.
The key here is
movement. A straight fastball is much easier to hit
than a ball that moves. Just ask any good hitter.
And any pitcher at any age can get movement on their
fastball.
But what makes the
ball move?
Now I’m not a
physicist, but the way I see it is that the spin of
the ball creates friction with the air and the ball
will move towards the area of the ball with the
least amount of resistance.
As a pitcher, I want
the ball to move later, rather than earlier. Less
time for the hitter to react. If the ball moves very
late, then the hitter won’t even pick up the
movement.
How do I get later
movement? Well, the later the release point, the
later the movement. I suppose velocity of the pitch
has something to do with it too, but the earlier I
release the ball, the sooner the friction will take
over.
How do I get the
later release point? Well, that’s where your
throwing mechanics come in.
If you move a part of
your body in the wrong sequence, then you’ll cut
your delivery off short, thus your release point
will be earlier.
That’s a topic for
another time of course. If you’d like to learn more
about our pitching principles, please check out our
velocity improvement DVD. In that DVD you’ll learn
the concepts of a later release point as well as
helping you train your body to maximize your
throwing speed.
Until next time….
Train like a champion
today!
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