I got a email newsletter from Richard Todd (Webball.com) and it intrigued me so I am posting it here (with his permission) for discussion. For those who do not know webball IMO it is the best source you can find for baseball coaching related material.
Anyway these are some of the modern coaches who have changed the traditional way baseball has been coached. There are a couple of glaring misses IMO one is Tom House and the other is Steve Springer. House is probably left out since he is probably considered “conventional”.
I know my son has been personally impacted by some of these guys, when he was 12 and interested in pitching I took him to one of Alan Jaeger’s camps and he has been using a lot of his techniques from long toss, his mental approach to Yoga since he was 13. This fall his program uses many of the Ron Wolforth developed pitching specific strength and conditioning training techniques. He has Steve Springer’s audio CD on his IPOD. N y m a n n must of done something here some time ago as his name is treated as a cuss word. I do know that one of my son's pitching coaches (and Trevor Bauer's coach) used some terms that Ny man used.
When arguments break out in the pitching section on pitch selection and pitch sequences I don’t even participate any more since 80% of the posters are clueless and I often think to myself “just go read Perry Husband’s book 3 on filthy pitching” It is the single best book on the subject and should be required reading for every serious pitcher IMO” (this means you GBM)
Thought I would throw it out there for some discussion on how unconventional approaches have impacted the game, as many of our kids are effected by these guys.
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MY ROLE MODELS
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WebBall is moving. Not far, but for the first time in about 8 years. So at times like this it's only natural to get both retrospective and introspective. And for me that means reflecting on the baseball role models I've had over the years.
This list is neither complete, nor exclusionary. I would go on far too long if I tried to include everyone who influenced me over the years. So I don't want anyone thinking that if someone is not mentioned here, I don't think they matter. Everyone matters; everyone contributes; and each of us gains from the ideas that have come before us.
Final introductory note: Perhaps it's in my nature to gravitate towards gadflies and mavericks. Most of these individuals were outside the lines, never content with the tried and true. Only a couple of them have ever been a coach in the conventional sense.
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PAUL N Y M AN
Eccentric is the easiest label to put on Paul. He came to the game with an engineering background and a scientist's powers of observation. He started by trying to measure throws and swings using electronics he'd developed, but then realized some fundamental dichotomies through video analysis - what we taught was not always what worked. In fact, we often taught 180 degrees from the truth.
I sat in on one of his earliest presentations to a group of college >coaches. Day 1 did not go well at all, his scattered professorial style did not suit those coaches who wanted reaffirmation of what they'd been teaching. That's not how it works. Not with Paul.
His first attempt in one of our early WebBall challenges went the same way - rejection. But truth will out and in time, what he observed and the analogies he used became accepted. My favorite is his description of the pitching motion as a ferris wheel on a merry-go-round, all turning on a flatbed truck moving forward. The ferris wheel is the vertical shoulder rotation; the merry-go-round, the hips; and the truck, the stride forward. Once you visualize it, it will always stick with you.
Sadly - as has happened often in this sport - the powers that be (meaning pro ball) were the last to consider and the first to rejection the ***** approach. A few years later he gave up on baseball, and it
was our loss.
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PERRY HUSBAND
Why? That question is the essence of all research and discovery. In Perry's case it began with why good pitching beats good hitting. It led to years of delving into the stats, millions of data points of pitcher-batter matches, all of which brought Perry to some startling insights. Batter deception, hitter attention theory, windows and tunnels, and a whole new approach to pitch sequencing. And subsequently
a new approach to hitting.
He struggled at first - I know he did. I watched him present to some unfriendly, unreceptive audiences. And to other groups who might not have been as antagonistic as they were towards Paul, but they were confused and puzzled.
That was in the 2004-06 period. Now things are different. Unlike Paul, Perry's observations and strategies are very much in the mainstream of pitching instruction.
Unfortunately, the last people to catch on seem to be the traditional on-air voices of baseball. Few if any, understand that the predictable nature of fastball-curveball is now meaningless. But you can see how the younger pitchers are getting it.
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RON WOLFORTH
Ron's story is different. His journey began with absolute certainty about what to teach and how to teach it. And he might have been content to continuing along the functional training path. But Ron had another quality ...curiosity. He was willing to consider any source - from House to Mills to Marshall to ***** to Husband - if there might just be a kernel of truth to it, something he could explore and adapt.
If that's all he did it would have been a valuable contribution. But Ron also crossed paths with guys like Jaeger and Reddick and many others. And in the process he began to understand that something was lacking in conventional pitcher training ...intensity.
What Ron has done - for pitchers of all ages - is show them how to effectively ramp up their training intensity. I love teaching Ron's exercise programs. I love how much happens in prep work before anyone is allowed to pick up and throw a baseball. And even then, how much he turns throwing the ball into an adventure in performance.
His Baseball Ranch has been wildly successful, putting more pitchers into college and getting more players through the draft than anyone else I know. There are some who might say his success is due more to marketing savvy than anything ...attract better players and you're going to have a better track record. Sure. But first you need to have something worth marketing. And for Ron that's intensity - not only his own but the way he imparts that to his students.
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ALAN JAEGER
At the opposite end of the scale is the mellowest man I know - Alan Jaeger. I was introduced to Alan's philosophy through his book, "Getting Focused, Staying Focused". At the time, mental training consisted of positive affirmation and visualization. And a bunch of hokum.
So along comes this guy, trying to show how to merge the mechanics of the western athlete with the insight of the far-eastern mind. Very different - another guy on his own path. And it didn't stop there. Soon Alan was showing how to use Yoga as a baseball training tool, and how breathing exercises could take away the intensity and bring calm and control into a pressure situation.
Think about that - you get a pitcher training intensely (a la Wolforth), you get fans (mostly family at younger ages) cheering wildly, and in the center of that turmoil, what the pitcher needs most is calm.
You can be as skeptical as you want, but I have used the breathing routines - and occasionally Yoga - with teenagers, and it works.
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PETE WILKINSON
Pete's on this list for one reason and one reason only... he has fun at this game. A former college roommate of Tom House, Pete is a terrific clinic presenter in his own right. He has this knack for mimicking the
pitching mechanics of many great hurlers - well worth watching.
Over the years, Pete has contributed many brilliant insights to the WebBall mindset, most notably: "the glove side belongs to the coach; the throwing side belongs to the pitcher". In that one statement he sums up the entire premise of "teaches" and "non-teaches" - of knowing when to meddle and when to leave a guy to figure it out on his own.
That's massively important. More players have been ruined by over-correction than you can imagine.
Actually there is one other reason Pete deserves to be on this list, it was in his town, and in part at his facility where I got to watch Ron Wolforth and Paul ***** in the same room at the same time. That was almost 10 years ago and the after-shocks are still reverberating.
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PAUL REDDICK
Finally, for this list, I have to talk again about Paul Reddick. I was first introduced to Paul as the co-author of a spunky little book with Tom House called "The Picture Perfect Pitcher". It was an early attempt to dispel many of the myths / conventional wisdom surrounding pitching.It did this mostly visually, nothing like a good show & tell to separate assumptions from reality. After several years as either a co-author or ghost writer for many other baseball books, Paul stepped out on his own in a big way with a project he called the 90 mph Club.
Through that vehicle he introduced many to the fine pitching skills of tire tossing and hammer throws and rock hauling and other not-for-the-timid training regimens. The more insane these got, the
more people loved him for it.
Paul is on the cusp of launching his next great venture in baseball instruction and I'll let him make that announcement when he's ready.
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