Dr. Yessis Sports Training Blog

I don’t know if it’s due to the World Series or simply writer’s imaginations but the descriptions given to pitches seem to be getting more elaborate. For example, after game two in describing Yankee pitcher Rivera, it was stated that “… he has done this, amazingly, with one basic pitch — a bat-breaking cut fastball.”

I think we can all understand bat-breaking, but since when does the bat break because of a particular pitch? More often than not it breaks because of where the ball contacts the bat, not the type of pitch thrown. Read more… »

In all my writings I try to be as explicit as possible. I define each word that may have complex or unique meanings and explain terms that may be misleading or used differently in the literature. Clarity and understanding are two objectives I constantly strive for and for which I receive many compliments.

I expect this in all books that I read dealing with the training of an athlete. But I find it increasingly difficult to find such books. Many of the more popular — notice I did not say most informative or state of the art — seem to do just the opposite. They are written in such a way that the true meanings are well hidden. Read more… »

Is not uncommon to find comments by coaches that on the surface sound great. But, if you closely examine what was said, you realize that it made no sense or that he really did not say anything. You probably thought you understood what was said, but the more you study the comments, the more you realize the comments left too much to interpretation.

A case in point are some comments made by a baseball pitching coach in relation to one of the teams pitchers. He stated, “If you are an athletic enough pitcher - and ………. is a very good athlete - sometimes it’s easier to get into a so-called zone if your delivery is a little quicker. But it’s a fine line.”

For some reason writers assume that they understand what athletic means and probably assume that the reader does also. But you’ll never see a sports reporter ask the coach what he means by this term. (See my blog on athleticism posted prior to this one)

In addition, the term zone is not defined. Zones can apply to many different factors making it important to know exactly what kind of zone one gets into, if the delivery is a little quicker. On top of this, what does a quicker delivery mean? Does it mean the actual pitching action is executed faster or does it mean that there is less time in between pitches? Or does it mean a combination of both?

As brought out in Sports: Is It All BS?, statements like these are very common. Is it a method used by coaches to show knowledge when in reality they know very little about the topic in which they are supposed to be experts. One would hope that this is not true but until we see more meaningful statements, statements that can be backed up and verified, we have to assume that it is true.

Isn’t it time for sports reporters and commentators to begin asking some hard questions? Or do they not know enough themselves to know what questions to ask? I would hope that they would at least want things explained to them so that it made sense without having to interpret what was said. If they are unable to do this, they will continue to act as parrots, only repeating what the coaches say. Is it any wonder that little to no progress is made in many of our major sports?

An interesting article appeared in today’s newspaper titled “Mound magician”. It was a story about Josh Banks of the Padres and his quest to find the perfect pitch. In the article there were pictures of the grip that was used for eight different pitches. At first I thought that the article would go into how these pitches were thrown and how the ball broke on each of these different pitches. However, none of this information was included.

Instead, we were treated to a potpurri of comments from the coaches and other players. The comment by Maddux was probably the most noteworthy — “I just call ‘em all changeups for the sake of it. It’s hard to tell from the side.” I have said something like this in many previous posts. It is impossible to tell what kind of a pitch was thrown when looking from the side. Read more… »

If you read carefully the many statements made by baseball players, coaches or team representatives, you will notice that they are excuses for poor performances and/or losses. Some of the more common ones include:

“We’re just not playing good enough to win right now” Read more… »

Unless you have some preconceived notions or ideas of what a particular pitch is, it should be very frustrating to read the many statements by pitchers and coaches, especially pitching coaches. For example, it is not uncommon to hear or read that a pitcher is working on developing a better changeup or more effective slider or a better curveball, etc. What is lacking in these comments is exactly what they are working on and more importantly, what exactly the pitch is.

If you’ve played baseball, most likely you’ll say that you know what these pitches are. But do you? If you read carefully the comments made by different pitchers and coaches you will see that very often the descriptions of these pitchers are quite different. There is no consistency as to what each pitch should do or does. For example, the curveball has often been described as a ball that breaks left or right while others define the curveball as one that sinks or drops rapidly. How is this different from a sinker? Read more… »