One day Walt Burrows looked out the window and saw a kid working out.  Throwing.  Taking groundballs.  The kid looked like an elite athlete.  Burrows was the head of the Canadian Major League Scouting Bureau so he went out to talk to the teenager. 

The kid’s name was Steve Nash and he told Walt he was more interested in playing basketball than baseball.

This made no sense at all.  Nash was a hoop midget, barely six feet, and this was Victoria, British Columbia, for God’s sake, not a New York playground.  This was the land of hockey pucks and soccer balls.  And even baseballs. 

Sure, basketball was big in high school.  But playing NCAA hoop was a distant dream and the NBA was about as reachable as riding a motorcycle to Mars.

So Burrows offered some sage advice.  Forget about basketball.  Your future is in baseball.

Over a decade later Burrows bumped into Nash.  “How’s that baseball thing working out?” Steve asked, grinning.

Nash studies his options

Nash played 19 years in the NBA.  All-star eight times.  MVP twice.  More assists than Gretzky times 10 and, yes, I know that’s not fair.

Hall of Fame. 

I don’t fall in love with stats.  But this one kills.  Nash was 50/40/90 in four seasons.  No, that isn’t some esoteric Satanic Cult. 

A least 50 per cent popping from the field.
40 per cent draining threes.
Plus 90 per cent from the free throw line.

Four times.  Yes, Martha, four.  Not even MJ can match that.

There were times when Nash seemed a bit undisciplined, hunting for magic that wasn’t there.  But that is also unfair because genius has to roam free and The Kid From Vic was Einstein on the court.  A gifted improviser, Steve created more than da Vinci, who envisioned submarines, tanks, helicopters and robots 500 years ago.

When he retired Nash hooked on as a special adviser with the Golden State Warriors. 

“He can communicate with them”

“Steve Nash has the ability to walk onto the court and earn the immediate respect of Kevin Durant or Steph Curry or Klay Thompson,” says Warriors GM Bob Myers.

“He can communicate with them.  There’s so much value in small details he can share with  guys at that level. There’s not a lot of teaching left for them and Steph’s not going to listen to many people about his jump shot. Steve might be one of the only people in the world he’d have that conversation with.”

And now the runt from Canada is the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. 

From groundballs in Victoria to head honcho in the Biggest Apple of them all.  What a long, great trip its been.

BASEBALL PUZZLE

How can ONE team get SIX hits in ONE inning
and NOT score a run?

When the bank clerk says “No No”

Alec Mills wears glasses on the hill, which makes him look like a bank clerk who wondered onto the mound by mistake.

His fastball peaks at 90-91. There are thousands of high school and junior college pitchers who throw harder than that.

He’s six inches against his body. Which puts a lock on his velo.

He was ignored out of high school. College coaches would have rather seen a corpse on the bump than Mills toeing the rubber. So his only choice was to be a walk on at the obscure U of Tennessee at Martin. Where he eventually became the ace of the Skyhawk staff.

Mills was drafted in the 22nd round by the Royals, which is remarkable for a college walk on. But, still, 22nd rounders saddle up in the MLB as often as it snows in Puerto Rico.

Seven years ago he tore the ligament in his elbow and met the surgeon known as Tommy John. Just another roadblock to test his perseverance.

His chances of throwing an MLB complete game were Slim and None and Slim Pickens passed in 1983.

So on Sunday he tossed a no-hitter as the Cubs slaughtered the Brewers 12-0.

This makes no sense at all. It’s about as incongruous as Donald Trump becoming president. As likely as winning the lottery by buying one ticket. As probable as Bogota, Columbia taking home the Stanley Cup. As logical as Tarot cards. Flamethrowers like Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan and Justin Verlander throw No-no’s. Not bank clerks.

So tell me Carnac, how does this happen?

Precision. Touch on your breaking ball. Changing speeds as often as McDonalds sells a Big Mac. When he throws his fastball they’re looking for his curve. When he throws the curve they’re looking for the change-up. When he throws the change they’re looking for the bench.
‘
It’s the Greg Maddux School of Pitching, a crash course in keeping hitters so off balance they’re walking a tightrope over the Grand Canyon without a safety net. They traipse back to the dugout mumbling, ”Why can’t I square up 89 in the middle of the zone?”

How good was Maddux? I give you this, scooped from my superb book Developing Pitchers.

*************************************************************************************

Maddux on the Hill

WADE BOGGS
“It seems like he’s inside your head. When he knows you’re not swinging, he throws a fastball down the middle. He sees the future. It’s like he has a crystal ball hidden in his glove.”

JEFF BAGWELL
Maddux intentionally grooved a pitch to Bagwell, who laced it for a home run. Months later in the playoffs Bagwell was looking for the same pitch. Which never came. “He knew when a guy gets a hit off a certain pitch, he’d keep expecting it again,” says Ryan Dempster, who sat next to Maddux in the dugout and studied him like an astronomer fixated on the Alpha Centauri galaxy.

“SEVEN YEARS LATER I GOT HIM”
Maddux, the elephant, never forgets. “Dave Martinez got a hit off me in the ninth inning with two out and a 3-2 count. I knew if I ever got in that same situation again, I’d pitch him differently. Seven years later I got him.”

FASTBALLS LOW AND AWAY
Maddux on pitching: “People think I’m smart. You know what makes you smart? Locating your fastball down and away. You talk to Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver, the three best pitchers of the modern era, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. It’s not your arm that makes you a great pitcher. It’s that thing between your ears.”

97 PER CENT PERFECT
From Leo Mazzone. “I’ve been the pitching coach with the Braves for eight years and I’m still in awe of Mad Dog. He can hit the target about 97 percent of the time with different speeds on his fastball. And his changeup is virtually pin-point perfect.”

*************************************************************************************

There’s a lesson here for all young pitchers. Yes, of course velocity is the king of the hill, the assassin, the killer.

But, if you have surgical command, a blue chip breaking ball, and a magician’s feel for bait and switch, you just might no hit Christian Yellich and the Milwaukee Brewers.

And Slim “Dr. Strangeglove” Pickens will be applauding from the clouds. While he shuffles the Tarot cards.

Riding a Nuke LaLoosh into the strike zone

Wick closes with his Cutter

Five years ago I did a session with Rowan Wick and his dad, Clayton. Working on a cutter/slider.

The third time he unleashed the Rawlings screamed, “Whoosh.” It sliced 10 inches sideways like a machete. It went supersonic and bit into the air like a crocodile. It sounded like it was in pain. It wasn’t just filthy, it was covered in so much slime you couldn’t see white.

A few days later Rowan was long tossing with a high school kid. When they shortened up he cut the cutter loose again. An even louder, “Whoosh.” The kid was stunned. “What the hell was that?” That was a genuine 20-carat MLB cut fastball.

Rowan loves his curveball and it’s blue chip. But I think the cutter/slider is even better. Since then Rowan has nibbled, teased, dabbled and probed the cutter, not sure if he wants to add it to the mix.

Until now.

This week he notched his fourth save with the Cubs, obliterating the Cardinals with three K’s in an inning and a third. He was a lights out gunslinger with the cutter out of his holster and spraying bullets like Jesse James.

Lefty Tommy Edman bit the dust on a fierce laser beam that looked like a heater until it broke down and in and jammed him up like a sardine.

Just to show the cutter is effective against sticks from both sides of the plate, Rowan doused Paul Goldschmidt with a pair of machete swipes off the end of wood.

Rowan has used the cut/slider a bit over the past two seasons but it took manager David Ross to convince him. They huddled as close as you can get with social distancing and Rossy suggested Rowan needed a third pitch just to boost him over the window sill.

Voila! A cutter is reborn. “Whoosh.”]

SEE HOW EASILY…

    …YOU CAN THROW HARD

This is what pitching is all about.  It’s gold.  Money.  A Grand Slam.  The Holy Grail.  The Academy Award for Best Picture.  The End of the Rainbow.  This is winning the $100 million Powerball Lottery.

When you throw the Rawlings with every ounce of your being, when every muscle, every ligament, every tendon, every bone and joint and neuron are working together as smoothly as the well oiled Maserati  V8 engine of a Ferrari, you are a Dominant Force. 

You are a 250-pound monster linebacker terrorizing that helpless QB, The Rock body slamming bad guys, Superman saving the planet.  You are Invincible. 

                You on the hill.  Locked and loaded.  All 8 cylinders revved and ready.

You have perfect rhythm.  You dance.  You are in synch.  And it all comes together with the TNT power of a nuclear explosion.

You are throwing with your Whole Body.  Bullets.  Machine gun blasts that turn hitters into ice.  This is Pure Velocity. 

And it all looks so easy

I give you Mariano Rivera.

He is not so much to look at muscle wise.  No guns or bulging pecs.  Just sort of a wiry, rangy dude who lifts heavy weights about as often as it snows in Phoenix. 

But the baseball jumped out of his hand like a volcano erupting.  Like a tiger in the zoo who just found a hole in his cage.  Like a streaking laser beam. 

Rivera had a perfect delivery. 

His whole body was so much in synch it was like watching the magnificent Secretariat strafe the Belmont, 31 lengths clear, Mahomes nailing a receiver on a 60-yard roll out, Clapton shredding on his Fender Strat. 

Rivera was the Hammer of Thor.  He rocked.

He never muscled up.  Never strained.  Never struggled.  He just let his body flow.  With a river of sweet rhythm like Motown drums and bass.  Mariano was the R& B Godfather of pitching, James Brown on the Hill.  

He handcuffed hitters with 95 mph cutters as impossible to hit as barreling a ghost. 

Rivera is what my book Developing Pitchers is all about.  Using your whole body to throw the baseball.  We’ll tear apart mechanics and put them back together, piece by piece, to show you the building blocks of velocity. 

SEE HOW EASILY YOU CAN THROW HARD

Because blazing heat all starts with one crucial, predominant, ineffable sentence.

Watch Gerrit Cole or Jacob DeGrom.  These guys blitz high 90’s flames with more exuberant life than a colt racing the wind in the hills of Kentucky.  The Rawlings bursts out of their paw like a hurricane. 

Why?  I could get really complex here like the gurus who sound like they’re the pitching coach at MIT. 

But my basic philosophy is to Simplify.  That goes for a 12-year-old or an MLB all star, who doesn’t want it complicated.        

Jacob DeGrom gets down the hill with the rhythm and power of a Maserati.

SEE HOW EASILY YOU CAN THROW HARD

If you strain or muscle up it’s as counter productive as doing jumping jacks in handcuffs. 

When you throw with your whole body in synch the ball ejects from your fingers like a lightning streak.  That doesn’t mean you aren’t throwing hard.  You are.  But it seems effortless, like watching a sublime Olympic gymnast.   

This starts with athleticism.  Timing.  Balance.  Rhythm. 

Great athletes make complex movements look far easier than they really are.  They’re magicians pulling rabbits out of a Rawlings. 

But it’s based on mechanics as solid as concrete.  Pure Velocity.     

Rivera, a Van Gogh work of art

Mariano’s rhythm and timing were as ineffable as Brando in The Godfather. 

He repeated his delivery as often as Italians eat spaghetti.  His six shooter was a biting 95 mph cutter that broke more wood than a logger.  Justin Morneau told me even though he knew it was coming that dart still strafed his hands mercilessly.  Pop up. 

 Rivera made it look easy but he was throwing hard, his arm speed was a blur.  The ball couldn’t wait to jump out of his hand like a little girl hugging her first puppy. 

Timing.  Rhythm.  They spell VELOCITY. 



         

         

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