If it’s 2010, chances are that a reliever is stirring in the bullpen, and this starter won’t see the 6th inning. Why? Because he will have exceeded his 100 pitch limit by the end of the 5th, or would too greatly surpass it if he went back out the following inning. The 100-pitch barrier proves the undoing of his fun.

Let’s talk about the number 100. It’s big, even, and round. 100 RBI’s in a season is a milestone, as is 100 years spent living on this earth. People celebrate the 100 mph pitch with great excitement, and few have ever been capable of throwing with such speed. 100 wins in a major league season is a fantastic total for a ballclub. And, when a starting pitcher throws 100 pitches, it is time to put in a reliever.

Baseball is too often "all about the Benjamins"

But Why? Why does the number 100 have such power over us? The transition from 99 to 100 is exactly the same as 109 to 110. The three-digitness of 100 just seems to hold some magical power over us, one in which milestones are created and bodies break down.

There is no good reason that we should assume that 100 pitches is the number after which pitchers’ arms will be hurt and effectiveness will be lost. Surely there is some general number for this, but I don’t believe that 100 is it.

Back in the day, pitchers threw 300+ innings a year and finished games without pitch counts. Some got hurt, and some didn’t. Is this the way that starting pitching should be? No, but it represents the other extreme.

Rather, I think the number falls somewhere between 110 and 140. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a good backing for this claim, other than experience and an appeal to the way pitchers pitched in the olden days. Yet, here are a few ways we could find a true pitch count limit…

1. Glycogen testing: Glycogen is the form of carbohydrate that is locally stored in muscle tissue. Glycogen stored in the rotator cuff, for example, is going to be chiefly used up by the rotator cuff muscles. When glycogen gets depleted, muscle performance drops off dramatically, as glycogen is your muscle tissue’s favorite and fastest energy source. If we could find out how many pitches depleted glycogen in the throwing arm and body as a whole to performance-affecting levels, then we would have a good reason to remove a starting pitcher at that point.
2. Velocity readings: Radar guns track every pitch thrown in professional baseball. When a statistically significant drop-off occurs in a game, that would be a sensible place to remove a pitcher. Understand, however, that if a pitcher throws 90 for 100 pitches then sits at 89, that might not be a statistically significant drop – as a loss 1 mph on a 90 mph fastball is only a 1.1% drop. But dropping to 87 from 90 (5%), might represent a more serious drop in performance.
3. Control and game performance: This is the way pitchers were evaluated before pitch counts and radar guns – by visually assessing their effectiveness. If you walk two straight hitters in the 8th, all with high pitches (signs of a dragging arm), maybe your dogs are barking. What’s wrong with this in today’s game? I say nothing, although we do need to make sure a pitcher’s connective tissues can hold up as long as their muscles can…
4. Connective tissue testing: I’ve read studies that claim that ligaments and tendons are more often injured due to highly repetitive stresses rather than one-time acute stresses. This means that you are more likely to injury a ligament or tendon as pitch count rises. Yet, this seems intuitive and obvious. Would you be more likely to tear your quad in the first mile of the Tour de France or the 500th mile? Duh.  But, testing that can tell us how and when connective tissue is becoming stressed to a dangerous level would help us estimate when it’s time to come out of a game.

Maybe all of these tests would tell us that 100 pitches is indeed the generally accepted time to yank the starter…but I would guess that it’s probably not. Differences in genetics, strength, conditioning, body control and experience all play into it, and there is little reason to think that only a handful of pitchers today are capable of throwing somewhat regular complete games. Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee finish about 30% of the games they start; are they superhumans? No. Are they doing something, something secret that the rest of the league doesn’t do, that allows them to go an extra 2-3 good innings? No. Rather, they are just effective pitchers who have established the ability to safely throw 115 pitches every time out, coupled with a coaching staff that understands this. I’m getting my first experience with this as well, as our pitching staff is given a leash of about 120 pitches. If we end an inning at 100, we go back out as long as we are effective. We get to have 15-20% more fun than other starters in our league.

I was discussing this with another pitcher in the bullpen, and he had an interesting point when I posited that there seemed to be a shift in the Majors toward letting starters go longer. He said that because steroids are largely gone, batspeed is down. Because batspeed is down, pitchers are more effective. Because pitchers are more effective, hits and runs are down, and pitchers who give up less hits and runs are less likely to get removed from games. Pretty good logic.

So is the 100 pitch barrier arbitary? I say yes.

Not much to say.

The monk’s name is Thich Quang Duc, and he performed this act of self-immolation as a protest against the persecution of his Buddhist people by the South Vietnam government. This photo, taken on an otherwise ordinary day in 1963, was seen throughout the world. I had this picture as a poster on my wall in college. Sure, it was a Rage Against the Machine poster (they used it as their cover art), but I wanted to be reminded on a regular basis what it looks like to be truly dedicated to your beliefs. This man SET HIMSELF ON FIRE for his beliefs, and so that those weaker than him could continue to practice Buddhism in peace.

It just makes me wonder if I could have the same commitment to something, and if anyone nowadays would take such a frightful stand for their beliefs. This man meditated on this act for a number of weeks so that when he lit the match, he did not waver from the lotus position. Journalist David Halberstam witnessed the event, and was quoted with the following:

I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think… As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.

My team, for example, contains guys with a crazy assortment of backgrounds. Vegas, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, everywhere in Texas, California, you name it, we have a guy from there. All that diversity means that there are big differences in the way we dress, talk, and act when we go out on the town.

Just last week we were way up at the northern tip of Michigan, and we got a chance to go out one night to experience their local nightlife. It became apparent to us within 5 minutes of being in the bars that we just didn’t belong, and weren’t like the others. Even though we all have different styles, being from so many different places, none of us fit in individually, and we all certainly didn’t fit in together.

You wonder why, why there are such differences in people within the same country. It’s hard to put your finger on it sometimes, and sometimes is might be something intangible like the aura that others put out. Yet, sometimes it’s cut and dry. We weren’t wearing V-neck shirts a size too tight; we didn’t have our hair spiked up in a blowout; we weren’t there with some stuck-up girl that we watched over from afar, ready to swoop in if any guy approached her.

"Really, you make your own hair gel?"

But back at home in Illinois there is still the same phenomenon. People are a bit more normal and approachable there (bad pun intended), but anything glaring that doesn’t fit the mold draws negative attention. My road roommate, Jason, is from Texas, and he is as much a Texan as anyone. Cowboy hat, studded belt, cowboy boots, fitted jeans and a Texas-star-studded wallet. Thing is, that’s who he is, he’s not ashamed to show it in public, and he doesn’t give a damn what other people think. And I can respect a guy like that. He knows that everyone looks at him, and the insecure “tough” guys make remarks as he passes, but he wouldn’t compromise who he is for anyone. And you become proud to roll with someone who respects himself like that.

One of the coolest things about being on the road is seeing these different places and occasionally feeling out of place. Though it isn’t comfortable, things that are uncomfortable are interesting, and teach us something about ourselves. Being around the same people doing the same things gets dull, and you never grow out of that hometown mold from which you were originally shaped.

When I became a senior, I was a lot of the same things they were – wiser, bigger, better and more experienced, but I didn’t feel like I thought I would. It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident in myself, but I still felt like me, and not that much like them. When I looked at those guys as a youngster, I wondered how it would feel to be that guy, and I imposed a set of characteristics upon them. The veterans always seem outwardly solemn, straight-forward, strong and confident, and you imagine that they would feel that way inside as well. But when I got to filling that role, I didn’t feel like I thought I would feel.

So I thought hard about this – do people ever feel the way we think they do when we look at them? Celebrities, major leaguers, rock stars – they all exude awesome amounts of coolness, but does this coolness permeate them through and through, or do they feel like scared kids just the same as the rest of us?

As a senior, I was perplexed that I didn’t feel like I thought I should as one of the elders. I brought this up to one of my philosophy professors, and he shared some wisdom with me that I really took home, and still carry with me…

In the forest, the tall oak tree stands above the others. It provides shade, food, oxygen and shelter to all the animals in the forest; It does not try to do this; it simply provides as a result of what it is.

Don’t try to be something you’re not, and don’t try to force who you are or want to be; by going about your business honorably and doing your best, you’ll grow taller and impact other people without even trying. The tallest oak tree impacts the whole forest without trying, knowing, or wanting to do so. It does it because it does, and is because it is.

Maybe no one ever feels like, or inwardly lives up to the perception we have of them. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.

Our weekend was spent in Traverse City, Michigan, which is way up North on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Traverse City Beach Bums were our Independence Day opponents, and I doubt we could have had a better place to play for the holiday.

Game 1 of the series was a win, thanks to Tyler Lavigne, who continued dominating teams like he has all season. Game 2 was mine, and it was lucky that my date fell on July 3rd. July 4th is usually spent with family, cooking out and doing various patriotic things, and so crowds aren’t usually as big on the actual holiday. July 3rd, however, is the day before the day, and since it fell on a gorgeous Saturday, the ballpark was packed.

Before the game, a really nice ceremony was held honoring our troops. The Blue Angels were in town for an air show, which we had watched on the beach that afternoon, and they were also at the game shaking hands with our veterans. I’m not all that sentimental, but with all of the speeches and veterans around, I felt pretty thankful to be on a baseball field, with 6,500 fans to watch us play. That was the biggest crowd ever in Traverse City, by far the biggest I had pitched in front of, and It was a neat experience. We even got a fly-over from a B-52 bomber. When the game started I got hit like a red-headed stepchild and didn’t make it through 4 innings, but it was a good day nonetheless. Some of our hitters really stepped up and mounted a strong comeback to try and bail me out. Though they couldn’t, the loss felt like a minor detail in light of the sacrifice of all our military personnel out there. Sports are crucially important to our culture, and I don’t believe what we do is at all frivolous, but fighting for one’s life is scary, and there were a lot of people watching us who had done just that. If it’s a job for the solider and a job for me, I’m pretty happy to be pitching baseballs rather than grenades.

Game 3 was a loss as well, and while it was a hell of a shame to leave town with a series loss, the weekend as a whole was interesting. Without baseball, I would probably never have visited Traverse City, which is a decent little town. I had never seen the great lakes before, and Lake Michigan was pretty amazing. Blue water that was only a foot or two deep for 1000 feet out. We got a chance to walk in it before heading to the ballpark on Sunday. And not to mention that it was the annual Cherry Festival, which brought thousands of people into the town for the weekend. With a ton of people around celebrating our country on a blue-skied holiday, the atmosphere was buzzing.

My stomach also honors the cherry.

Yeah, the ride home was long, and quiet (we were all pissed about dropping the series), but win or lose the trips are an experience. Independent of our losses, this one was pretty cool. As we rolled out of town we caught 5 different sets of fireworks from our bus, some I think that were in Grand Rapids, which kind of summed up the life we live. Being on the move all the time, we don’t get to soak in a lot of things like holidays and family moments, but we get a high volume of little cultural fragments. Sure, we didn’t get to watch the fireworks from a blanket with our loved ones, but we got to watch it from the bus, doing something we love with our summer family. I don’t remember the first time I watched fireworks, but I’ll remember the first time I watched them from a bus.

Don’t get me wrong – I hate losing and performing poorly. Losing reflects negatively on me as an athlete; mostly, it reinforces the idea that maybe I’m not that good of one. I try rather hard to be “good,” and I want some bang for my buck.

No, what I’m talking simply extends my view of the world so that it blankets my life as an athlete. In a nutshell, I’m not responsible for anything that happens on the field, and because I’m not responsible for it, I’m not emotionally attached.

How could I possibly feel that I can control an entire baseball game from the mound, yet be completely without culpability for the results? One word: Determinism.

Determinism is the idea that all of our actions in life are predetermined, and that we lack free will. Strict determinism is extremely difficult for people to feel safe with, as perceived moral responsibility is necessary for people to govern their own behavior in a way that protects all the members of a society. If people don’t feel bad about acting in malicious ways because they feel that they lack culpability, then there is little mechanism left for adjustment of the behavior. Yet, I believe in determinism.

I believe that all of my actions are governed in a strict way not because of some external power or God, but rather my own method of processing the world, of which I have no control. My brain is unique, as is my perception of the world and my method of gathering and processing information. These facts of my unique nature, combined with all of the physical laws of the world result in my choices being governed by myself. Because I have no control over the way in which I process information, nor the creation of my processes, I really am no more responsible for my actions than a car is for breaking down. They happen the only way they possibly can.

Everyone I tell this to rejects my view. They say, “No, you can just choose otherwise.” This isn’t true. If I choose to eat a hotdog rather than a hamburger, when I ponder the choice I consider all the facts at hand, including but not limited to my hunger, food preferences, past experiences with each, perceived enjoyment of each, etc. Then, if I settle on a hamburger, but at the last minute just switch to a hotdog, I’m still doing it because of some internal desire, fact of the world, or whatever, of which I have no control. I can’t control my preferences, desires, physical laws  or history of the world. All of the methods of choice processing and all of the facts presented to me are all external of my own control. And thus, whatever choice I settle on was the only possible choice I could have made. Because of this, I have no responsibility for my choices and their outcomes.

So, when I take the mound, I do so having practiced my craft and prepared my body to the best of my ability each week. And even if I was lazy in my preparation, lazy was the only possible way in which I could have prepared. When I take the mound, I pick my pitch, based on all the information presented to me about the hitter, the game situation, my ability to execute the pitch, and then I let my body perform the act of pitching. When the pitch leaves my hand, it can travel only the path that is predetermined by the kinematics of my body and the physical laws of nature, to coincide with a mitt or bat which also resides in physical space according to strict physical laws. Thus, when I throw a pitch, I control it’s flight only in the sense that I tell my body to pitch it, and I then hope that the pitch is executed according to the idea for it I have set forth in my mind. What my physical body then does, is completely out of my control, as is the result of the pitch after it leaves my fingertips.

Roll 100 of these pitches together into a single pitching outing and you have a game over which I had a large influence but no actual responsibility. Win or lose, succeed or fail, it was all predetermined by factors outside of my control, because I lack the free will to control any of it. Thus, when I do well, I feel pride that my name is associated with a successful outing, but I know that I had little or nothing to do with producing that outcome.

Yet, as a human being, I violate even my own ideology. I feel angry and ashamed when I do poorly, and proud when I succeed. These emotions can only rightly be associated when one is responsible for an action; I am not. I see my own inconsistencies, but often fail to adjust them. Maybe it’s human nature.

Either way, win or lose, I try to stay level-headed, understanding that the results were largely beyond my control. Sure, preparing for the start and honing my mechanics allows me to execute each pitch with more consistency and accuracy. But, again, my willingness to prepare is a choice that stems from my unique, innate and determined character.

Make your head hurt? Mine too.

OK, I guess that’s not really news to anybody. Everyone knows that athletes, especially baseballers, routinely attribute their good and not-so-good performances to powers beyond. I, however, being the skeptical, disbelieving empiricist that I am, reject superstitition. It’s nonsense, plain and simple.

Yep, you struck out four times because you smudged the foul line. Definitely.

I watch this stuff everyday. No one wants to step on the foul line. Batting gloves must be neartly arranged in the back pocket exactly like they were last at-bat. Dirty socks and jocks must not be washed during a winning streak. The starter has a no-hitter going – no one talk to him, mention it, or disturb his seat while he’s in the dugout; if you do, it will surely be broken up.

This stuff would be considered insanity in the household, workplace, or anywhere else. To go to such lengths to control some unknown force, that exists just to meddle in your athletic endeavors, is absurd.

A blooper dropped in; must have been the ghosts.

Remember Angels in the Outfield? You know, the mediocre baseball movie starring one of those child actors, that we all used to know, and Danny Glover? In the movie, the Anaheim Angels started winning when the supernatural (yes, I’m categorizing angels just the same as Casper and the Marshmallow Man) decided to intervene, making fly balls zig-zag, turning routine outs into hilariously befuddling triples. This movie raises the questions…

"Angels caused your golden sombrero? Why, that sounds completely reasonable!"

Is this really what we think superstition is all about? Have we ever really thought about the mechanics of it?

That some force out there, be it ghosts, Jesus, voodoo, or whatever, is altering the flight of the baseball and one’s own baseball-pursuing self, so as to alter the outcome of a play when proper superstition is not observed? This is what we are really conceding when we engage in superstition – that something out there is going to change the outcome if we don’t.

Friendly, until he guides a blooper over your shortstop's head

It’s just baffling, to think that anything other than what physics dictates will happen, can happen. Pool is a great example of physics in motion – the balls move exactly according to force and angle at which they struck. There’s nothing else to discuss. And, though I don’t have any data on this, I would venture that pool players have very little to be superstitious about during a match – it seems that any good pool player would realize that it’s all about the angles.

Baseball is the same way; but we just forget that it is. Once the pitch leaves the hand, it flies exactly as physics dictates – according to it’s velocity, spin, wind resistance, etc. Once the pitch leaves the hand, it can end up in only one location. Likewise for the bat – when the hitter swings, the bat hits the ball, sending it off in a direction that is solely determined by the collisions of the two and the surrounding enviroment. Where does superstition factor into this physical transaction? When does the hand of God put that extra bit of English on the pitch? When do the ghosts weigh down the legs of the shortstop, so that the 15-hopper squeaks through the infield?

They don’t. They just don’t.

And besides the non-sensical mechanics of it, where is the performance correlation? What has superstition ever done for you?

Great hitters hit .300. That means that if they perform the same ritual every time up, it fails for them 70% of the time. Ever think about that? Pitchers use the same superstitions despite winning and losing by them. Why bother? Baseball is such an up and down sport, that any statistical analysis would quickly prove zero correlation whatsoever between rituals and performance. If my ritual caused me to get a hit only 3/10 at-bats, I would assume it was hurting me, not helping me.

The bottom line is that the only thing that matters in this world, the way I see it, is your own action. I control my body, which in turn controls the objects over which I have influence. One they leave my hand, each pitch does the only dance it was ever able to do – one that is predetermined by physics and the nature of myself and this world. There is no room for supernatural meddling, and no room for stressing and wasting energy on trivial rituals.

Oh Stevie Wonder, how you have led us all astray!

Wake Up

I awaken anywhere between 9am and 2pm. 5-8am basically doesn’t exist. Because we  don’t have to report to the field until usually 2-4, depending on the day and our workload, we have all morning and early afternoon to ourselves. And, because the first half of the day is boring and uneventful, sleeping seems like the best use of our time. Sure, I could get up, make breakfast, and read the paper, but I’ll have time to do that when I’m old. Rather, I sleep until I feel good…then I sleep about a half hour longer. Why do we need all the sleep? More on that later…

Upon awakening, I make breakfast and watch TV or do a little writing. At home, I get the chance to make healthy food for myself, which is great because while on the road we rarely have healthy, fresh options. Some oatmeal, fresh fruit, eggs, fish oil and a protein shake start off a great day during a homestand. If we’re on the road, then I force myself to sleep even longer before foraging outside for food. Usually the bus will take us somewhere if we don’t have restaurants within walking distance, but sometimes we’re out of luck. Grocery stores are my savior, as I can save some dough and get quality food in lieu of Wendy’s and whatnot. Hotels in small towns are boring, and we don’t have to be at the ballpark until 4:00 while on the road for a 7:05 game.

The Least Attractive Redhead I know

The Workday

At the ballpark, it’s time to make our money. We get all of our practice, training, etc. before the game, which is why we are there 3-5 hours before our game. We get time in the clubhouse to change, make some food, rock out to some music, or whatever for our first hour at the field. Again, the workload of the day depends on how much of our time during pregame is free. The two days after a start I have a lot of training, dry drills and conditioning to do, so there’s less time to sit around. But other days, there’s more time to sit and enjoy the antics of the rest of the team. Batting practice lasts 45 minutes, and then we either continue to get our practice in, individually, or head back to the clubhouse for pregame food, showers, bullshitting, and uniforms.

Once the game starts, we have 3 hours to hopefully earn our salary. One of my teammates was calculating our earnings today. He told me that based on my pay rate, if you were to assume I get paid only on days I pitch, I earn about 1 dollar per pitch, or roughly $100 per start. Yeah, I don’t make much, but I couldn’t care less. Most of it goes in my pocket, anyway, because we don’t pay for much of anything.

After Hours

Once the game is over, it’s back to clubhouse for more free food, which is hit or miss depending on the clubbie. Here’s how the clubhouse works:

We pay clubhouse dues to the “clubbie”, who washes our uniforms and buys our food for us. When we’re away, we’re at the mercy of a clubbie who may or may not care how well we, the visiting team, are fed. If they provide us nice, catered meals after each game, then we all go home full and we can pocket our per diems. But, if the food sucks, then we may or may not eat it, and may have to go searching for food at a time that most restaurants are closed. We have to pay him dues either way.  Our clubbie at home, Mark, is terrific and takes great care of us, so we all try to take care of him as well. He works long hours and is a great guy.

Once we leave the ballpark, our real free time is upon us. This is our only chance to socialize, though we are all usually tired from a long day in the heat. If we don’t go out to the clubs, life outside of baseball gets kind of dull. So, we all try to go out a few days a week to see some new faces. We have all day to sleep, so being out until 1 or 2 isn’t a big deal. When we go out, some guys drink a lot, some guys don’t drink much, or at all. After that, we go to sleep, and do it all again.

The compact schedule makes for a fun but rigorous summer. Days off are rare and having a game in a new city the next day is commonplace. Those lazy afternoons become valuable when you have to pack up the bus at 11:00pm after a game and drive to a new city, where you hopefully arrive before the sun comes up. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t, and a 4:00 bedtime can feel regular at times. Sleeping on the bus, if you’re a light sleeper like me, is difficult. But, after a few cumulative late nights it gets easier.

Life-Giver?

Just recently we were on the road near Chicago, and we had a 4 hour drive to our next road series. After wrapping up the first series, we were sent packing with a really terrible spread of food that nobody ate. So, we hit the road with empty stomachs heading up to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Upon arriving at around 3am, we were all starving and had to find food. It was early morning, so nothing was open. McDonald’s was serving, but only via the drive-thru. So, our assistant coach convinced the drive-thru window person to make 50 double cheeseburgers for us, along with 10 orders of chicken nuggets, powerades for everyone, and 20 orders of fries. It took about 45 minutes of waiting and about 45 seconds of annihilation before all the food was gone. I had actually avoided eating a McDonald’s burger before then, so this 3:30 burger was my first. When you’re starving, you take what you can get. Late nights and fast food: two things that wear you down in a hurry, but that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It’s an interesting life, to say the least, and I’m going home with stories.

When you fail, go out the next day and work even harder; your work ethic is the only thing of which you have full control. Understand that your preparation is the hand with which you grasp your own destiny.

Satisfaction incubates mediocrity.

I don’t do a lot of videos, partly because I don’t have an omnipresent assistant and partly because I prefer to lay things out in writing. But, my friend and strength coach Nick Tumminello and I made a little how-to before I left the city for my flatter, more opportunistic midwestern town.

So check this out, and hopefully you learn a few things about the sleeper stretch, hip mobility, thoracic mobility and a few things you might have been doing incorrectly.