The grip is the same for both the fastball and curveball. Your middle finger and forefinger are both spread in a comfortable “V” on top of the ball, with your thumb underneath. If you deliver the fastball from the three-quarter or overhead delivery, your hand is directly behind the ball. When the ball leaves your hand, it’ll be rotating upward, towards the future. To spin the ball more effectively, you’re probably going to grip the ball across the stitches, either in the narrow or wide part of the figure 8, depending on what’s comfortable for you.

When you throw a curveball, you’re going to make the ball rotate or spin away from the hitter at an angle. The ball should go out and down, not horizontal or “flat.” Move your top fingers along the stitches and goes slowly through delivery as with the fastball to practice.

When your wrist snaps forward, twist your hand outward and bear down on your outside finger. First, learn to twirl the ball at the proper degree. (Paint a large black spot on side of the ball so that you can get correct angle to the “spin.”)

You can improve your control by erecting a set of strings to guide the pitch. For that construct a string between two trees or poles at your average shoulder height, and then put another one parallel to that below it at knee height. Tie two pieces of twine 12 inches apart to the top string and loop around to the bottom string. This will form a “strike zone.” Then, build a pitcher’s mound in front of the strings the right distance away.

Practicing the windup

When it comes to the windup, we’re going to be talking about the three-quarter delivery because it’s the most popular. For this, you’re going to use two basic positions, the windup and the “stretch.” You use the full windup when the bases are empty. Professionally, it’s usually used when runners are on second and third, first, second and third, or on third. The “stretch” is usually used with players on first, first and second, or first and third.

If someone shows promise at eight years old, he or she should first be taught to throw from the stretch position and then gradually be shown the full windup. Before any throwing starts, the pitcher has to learn where and how to stand on the mound. The rules say that the pitcher has to have one foot in contact with the pitching mound until the ball has been delivered.

For that, his pitching foot should be on the plate at the beginning of the windup and stay there until the body is in the final position of the delivery. The pitching foot is the right foot if a person is right-handed, or left for left-handed pitchers. The weight is on the back foot, behind the rubber. The pitcher will hold the ball out of the batting person’s line of sight behind his pitching leg.

When the pitcher sees the batter and the catcher is in the proper position, he can begin the throw.

The game requires regular practice, no matter what aspects you’re practicing. Good baseball players are made as well as born.

Learn More about the Tips and Tricks You Need to Become a Pro.

Something to remember, though, is that if the batter can’t reach the catcher with the bat on the back swing before the pitch happens, he’s not going to touch him when he tries to hit the ball, either. Batters go forward and away from the catcher to make a hit. If the catcher’s just out of reach of the back swing, he’s safe.

He still has to get as close as he can for these reasons, though. If he’s back in extra foot, let’s say, the pitcher, too, has to throw an extra foot. And, the curveball is going to start its break too late. If he stays too far back, the catcher also makes his own job harder because he adds to the distance his throws to the bases have to make.

Oftentimes, beginning pitchers instinctively close their eyes when the batter swings. Sometimes, the catcher is going to turn his head, too. These are natural reactions, but they can be dangerous. The catcher has to keep eyes open, chin down, and he looking straight ahead until the ball is in his glove in order to AVOID getting hurt. The equipment he’s wearing is going to protect him. Oftentimes, young catchers will also react to balls thrown into the dirt. Again, a natural reaction, but he or she must “retrain” the response and drop to his or her knees, put the glove on the ground, and block the ball. Again, the equipment is going to protect the catcher.

When the catcher throws the ball

Of course, catchers also have to throw balls back to the pitcher, too. It’s important to work on this throw to make it work right. As with outfielders, the catcher throws overhand, hand directly behind the ball. The ball shouldn’t curve and if the ball hits the ground, it should have good backspin so that it will bounce sharply and high. The catcher’s job is different from the outfielder’s, though, and therefore he is not going to have enough time to do a full arm swing. Instead, a snap throw is what is required. For the snap throw, the arm should be in the laid-back position for the overhand throw.

The hand is brought down to a point behind the ear instead of holding it directly over the pitching elbow. Then, the catcher steps toward and “snaps” the ball toward the pitcher. This is the same technique a football player uses when he or she throws a spiral forward pass. Throw directly at the base to catch a runner stealing or if throwing to second on the cutoff play, throw directly at the cutoff player’s head.

The first time a baseball catcher does the job, he or she should learn how to throw the ball to the pitcher the right way. A pitcher works hard during his or her own job during a ball game, and therefore shouldn’t have to go after errant throws from the catcher. And that’s not only a bad thing for the pitcher, but it’s also dangerous to the runners on base.

The catcher should throw the ball at the pitcher’s glove shoulder, which is in direct line and just the right height to throw to second base. The throw itself should be nice and evenhanded, neither too soft nor too hard. Again, throw a good evenhanded throw at the glove shoulder. With bases occupied, catchers should always take a look at the runners before returning the ball to the pitcher.

Baseball catching is indeed a central part of the game.

Some of the more common components of most baseball pitching workouts include pitching drills, lifting weights, using weighted balls, and stretching have proven to actually do more harm to pitchers than good or actually end up decreasing a pitcher’s velocity. This is because most of these methods or drills focus more on the arm than on the body as a whole. The best pitching comes from pitchers who use their whole body when they throw the pitch, and not just their arms. When you use your whole body to throw the pitch, and use it with maximum effectiveness, there are certain postures that your body should go through, and if a pitcher trains his body in how it feels to be in these positions, it becomes natural to use proper pitching mechanics.

While this theory has been proven in many studies, word hasn’t really traveled through the masses and hasn’t really reached most coaches. Consequently, many coaches continue to have their pitchers waste the time spent in pitching workouts with the methods that aren’t as useful in actually improving pitching. More and more parents are learning about how important it is to use their whole body and the correct way to throw a pitch via the use of pitching videos and manuals that are being sold on the internet.

Maybe, as more studies are done showing the typical training methods are not as effective as previously thought, more coaches will switch to more effective baseball pitching workouts methods. Better workouts will focus on leading pitchers through pitching mechanicsb, starting with the end and moving backwards, and on learning how to use their bodies to harness the explosive velocity that can be generated through pitching a baseball correctly.

Is weight training a vital part of pitching workouts? A pitcher needs to have a strong arm to throw fast pitches, doesn’t he? Actually, weight training is a bad idea for a pitcher. First of all, it is not the arm that controls pitch speed, but the body. Neither does this mean that a pitcher should do a full body strength training workout. At the heart of speed is good pitching mechanics, period. All weight training does is provide the pitcher with further opportunity for injury.

Do other types of exercise make for good pitching workouts? While full body strength training is not recommended, full body explosive exercises are. These may include sprinting and aerobic training. One reason behind this is that while good mechanics improve pitch speed, exhibiting speed, in turn, improves the acquisition of good mechanics. Besides, pitching is not slow and deliberate, like weight training – pitching is fast and explosive, like the aforementioned sprinting and aerobic exercises.

The best pitching workouts are those that most closely resemble genuine game intensity and play. Therefore, workouts should stick to explosive exercises as previously mentioned. Practices should also be extremely intense. The pitcher should throw from a mound and not the flat turf. Drills and concentrating on the long toss should be traded in for practicing pitching mechanics. Pitches should not only mimic game intensity, but also quantity. That is, the pitcher should try to throw in practice as many pitches as he would in a game. Throwing fewer pitches, again, actually creates greater risk of injury.

Really, these approaches to practices only make sense. Just as standing still at the foul line and taking large quantities of shots doesn’t really prepare a basketball player for a real game, neither is a pitcher prepared for a real game simply by tossing the ball back and forth. The key is in practicing that reinforces those good, solid mechanics.

Which physical skill do you think helps more: strength or speed? When it comes to pitching a baseball, speed wins. No, strength training isn’t necessary to gain speed, either. First, the mind has to understand pitching mechanics, then the body has to practice them – so that executing proper position and form is as natural as slipping a hand into a batting glove. Since the body and not the arm controls speed, once a player learns the proper body positioning, everything else falls right into place.

What are some dos and don’ts that will encourage a pitcher to gain speed via pitching mechanics instead of attempting to increase strength? Don’t do weight training, throw weighted balls, or focus on the long toss. Remember, this will only make the arm stronger, not increase speed. In fact, these are sure ways to simply increase chance of injury, so it is doubly important to avoid them. Neither are drills or other excessively repetitive exercises helpful.

Should the pitcher, then, instead do the complete opposite and simply practice by playing “catch” or doing anything less than game intensity pitching? No.  Just because the pitcher should be working on training his whole body to use proper pitching mechanics – instead of focusing on his arm through tunnel vision – doesn’t mean his practice on the whole should be any less intense.

Keep the body under control by eliminating unnecessary and speed-decreasing movements. Don’t rotate your trunk or hips. Don’t step to the side before lifting your leg or lift your leg too high. Implement a longer stride, however, to put you closer to the plate and improve your overall control. While position is important, don’t obsess over “staying tall”, as this can actually shorten your stride. Don’t forget: In pitching, speed outranks strength, and speed is gained not through strength and pitching drills, but through mechanics. With good mechanics, a baseball pitcher will simultaneously acquire both faster speed and better control.

By Jim Nettleton

Is anyone else as tired as I am of hearing endlessly about pitch counts in major league baseball? Today’s multi-millionaire pitchers are apparently so fragile that throwing anything over 100 pitches is considered an act worthy of a Congressional Medal.

These players are supposed to be the most well conditioned, most well trained in history, yet they cannot equal the pitching performances of countless players that have gone before, in the days when conditioning meant having only 4 hot dogs instead of eight and two fewer beers than the day before.

Never before have we seen such constant injuries, tendonitis attacks, and aggravated hang nail epidemics. Today’s pitchers do not remotely possess the sustainability of their predecessors. We can’t, I suppose, place all the blame at the feet of the pitchers. It is management that has, in its ultimate wisdom, decided that these tender players need to be completely coddled, lest they become irked and moody.

Okay, let’s do some constructive comparisons between today’s pitchers and those of days gone by. Today, 100 pitches is the panic point and complete games are almost unheard of. In days gone by, nothing could have been more the opposite. Let’s take Hall Of Famer Robin Roberts, for example. Roberts, in a career that spanned nineteen years, pitched 676 games. Of those, 305 were complete games, nearly half of all games he pitched. Every season, Roberts was present and accounted for, without those arm problems that modern day pitchers seem to develop as regularly as summer rains.

Nolan Ryan’s career covered 27 incredible years. He pitched in 807 games and, of those, 222 were complete games. Need we point out that he participated fully in all of those 27 years?

Steve Carlton’s career spanned 24 years, during which he pitched 741 games. Of those, 254 were complete games. There was no significant down time during those years, just continual top-level performance.

The 21 year career of Warren Spahn is another example. He pitched 750 games during that career and completed 382. That is truly an amazing total. And again, during all those games there was never significant down time.

These are just a few examples, but there are many, many others throughout baseball history. Why is it that pitchers of yesteryear had the stamina and ability to perform at a far higher career-long level than those of today? They had none of the training and conditioning advantages that today’s players enjoy, yet they were more durable and consistent than the vast majority of today’s pitchers.

It seems that sometimes the more we learn, the less we know. Nearly every team in the major leagues these days has pitchers on the disabled list, pitchers slated for Tommy John surgery, pitchers with sore elbows, shoulders, and on and on. It seems as though the baseball upper echelon, on both the league level and the individual team level, is thoroughly mishandling the situation. There has to be a reason that today’s pitchers can’t stand up under the durability spotlight when compared to those that came before. Pitchers of the past sometimes threw both ends of a double header, or pitched on consecutive days, or on only two days rest. Today, five days is the norm and pitchers simply aren’t available on any less rest.

Perhaps today’s practice of throwing less leads to weaker arms, not more durable arms. Doesn’t more repetition build more lasting strength? Yesterday’s pitchers threw much more often and maybe that’s the reason that they didn’t break down like a cheap watch.

Something is rotten in Denmark. Baseball needs to find the answer to this perplexing durability problem, because at today’s ridiculously inflated salary levels, fans deserve more than over coddled, under achieving pitchers.

About the author:

Jim Nettleton is a radio and TV professional who is a lifelong baseball addict and who played the game for decades. He highly recommends a proven training aid designed to vastly increase hitting prowess, Rotational Hitting – http://tinyurl.com/69e7ce and a training aid to develop a psychological advantage in the game http://tinyurl.com/6zxqcx.