Posts Tagged ‘warbird academy’
May 4, 2012 | 
Author Making it to the Major Leagues? It’s an impossible journey. 1=1000
Throwing a complete game? That’s an awful lot of flawless pitching. 1=1000
Writing a book? I don’t even know where to start. 1=1000
Losing 50 pounds? That’d take too much work. 1=1000
Running A Marathon? I think I’d die. 1=1000
Adding 10 miles per hour to my fastball? That’s a big jump. 1=1000
A Journey of A 1000 Miles Starts With One Step.
Life seems unmanageable when you consider the magnitude of any worthwhile undertakings. I want to be a big leaguer. I have to dominate this and every season for the rest of my life to accomplish that goal. That means throwing lots of zeros, giving up few hits, striking out lots of batters, etc. I’d have to outcompete some very talented pitchers. It’s all too much to imagine me, a 26-year old small righthander, being able to machete my way through all of that.
But, as for any athlete, none of that stuff can be accomplished all at once. The impressive body of work is accomplished one microevent (is that a word?) at a time. I can’t accomplish all of those things at once, or even part of it at once. It’s too much pressure to think about throwing up all zeros every time out.
Break It Up. What Can Be Accomplished?
My meditations of late have been focused on my only job, and it’s utterly simple. I can give myself a chance to accomplish all of the above if I take a 1=1000 approach. Specifically, for my sport, the “1″ is each pitch. If I make one pitch effectively, then I’ve done 100% of that which is within my power to accomplishing all of my goals.
My career, at this moment, is comprised solely of this pitch. I cannot change the past or affect the future; I can only make this pitch to the best of my ability.
Understanding this has taken the weight of the world off of me. I don’t have to throw 9 scoreless to keep my ERA desirable to scouts. I don’t have to go 12-0 this season. I don’t have to strike out 12 batters per nine innings. I don’t have to compete with the 21 other pitchers in training camp. I just have to make one pitch.
Rinse and repeat. Don’t look to the future; forget the past – both derail you. All you need is to concentrate yourself 100% on the task at hand, because this task is the only task keeping you from your goals.
Any athlete’s career is comprised of single plays. Make the best of each one, and they add up into great weeks, months, seasons, and careers. The more an athlete can do to segment his or her career into mentally-manageable chunks, the more focused, capable and in control they will feel. 1=1000.
One of my students, Freshman lefthander Ryan Basden, threw a perfect game last week. His mother was kind enough to send me over the clipping, as I wasn’t able to make the game. I had seen him K eight batters over 5 innings in a previous start this season, so I can’t say I’m surprised that he has continued to dominate. Ryan has a hammer from hell and a sinking changeup to go along with his 6’2″, 220lb frame. He’s got some physicality and some talent, to say the least. Ryan has been taking lessons from me for over a year and was in my Warbird Throwing Academy this offseason.
It’s always great to see my students taking a winter of hard work out onto the mound. Couldn’t be prouder…
In 2010 I lost 2 weeks of season and 2 starts due to a dime-sized blister. It was a very humid day, and I had been using a lot of rosin. If you’re not a rosin user, it tends to make your hands very tacky after a handful of innings. The moisture plus increased grip left me with lots of friction on much-softened fingertips.
In the 6th or 7th inning I got in a bases loaded jam, at the height of which the entire tip of my middle finger tore off. I still regret that I don’t have a picture of it, because it was almost my entire fingerpad and quite gross. I threw my last 6 pitches of the inning without an outer layer of skin.
At the end of 2011 I felt the blister coming back, and it really made me nervous…maybe I just have bad skin. So, being a pseudo rock climbing fanatic, I looked into a way to harden my fingertips. I stumbled upon a creme called Antihydral, which many climbers swear by to help harden their hands and fingertips. It’s supposed to stop skin from sweating, dry it out and cause calluses. I bought some.
The old solution in baseball to blistering, soft hands is to urinate on them – made popular by Moises Alou (and the alleged orgin of “the pound” – players didn’t want to shake his hand). However, urine contains urea, which actually breaks down dead skin; synthetic urea it’s a common additive in skin cremes. Don’t pee on your hands if you want them harder. Softer, yellowed and smelly? Sure.
The following picture is of the tube itself and the application – a thin layer allowed to dry and remain on the fingers for a few hours. I dab it on before I go to sleep and it’s usually there to greet me in the morning.
skin hardener
So I’ve been using the stuff for about a week now, and it really truly does what it’s supposed to – kill skin. The following is a picture of me immediately out of the shower. Notice the difference between my throwing fingers and the rest of my hand. It’s pretty obvious by the dead skin which ones are getting the Antihydral treatment.
The post-shower picture is pretty valuable because it’s hard to show a callus via photo. I have huge ones where my palms meet my fingers, yet you’d never know by the photo.
The Verdict:
My fingers are pretty plastic-y and have a nice layer of callus. I feel pretty confident that if I continue to use Antihydral, it will keep my skin where I need it – tough, not soft. If it gets too dry, they say to apply “lotion with fat” to alleviate the dryness, and applying the stuff to skin creases is a big No-No; creases are designed to flex and will crack and bleed if dried out.
I found Antihydral here. It cost me $30 with shipping, which is expensive but I consider my blister problem a high priority to solve. The tube will likely last me at least two seasons. If you have a tough time with skin tears, it may be worth a try.
A pretty simple way to conceptualize how velocity and location affects a hitter.
I flew out to Southern California almost two weeks ago to attend Alan Jaeger’s pro camp. Alan stumbled upon my blog a year ago after I linked to one of his long toss articles, and we both thought I’d learn some good stuff from the trip.
The camp was 4 days and geared mostly toward mental training, which I will discuss more in another post. Though I have been a lifetime self-taught long-tosser, I learned a few things from Alan that have had a profound affect on the way I’ve approached the training in my Warbird Academy since I returned home. Read the rest of this entry »