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 this book 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.
Because blazing heat all starts with one crucial, predominant, ineffable sentence.
SEE HOW EASILY YOU CAN THROW HARD
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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Dave Talks Baseball 