football drill

[WaSpeed02]

So no human being--not even Hillhouse--can make the ball break upward? His videos led me to believe many people *think* they throw a rise ball, but it's merely a high fastball. Yet he seemed to insinuate that it is possible to throw a rise ball that truly breaks.

But if the ball truly doesn't break, what does it matter if it has 12/6 spin or bullet spin? Or is the 12/6 spin simply to keep the pitch as flat as possible? If it's to keep it as flat as possible, then doesn't that go against what Hillhouse teaches, namely, that EVERY pitch needs to break in some way?

 

[Sparky Guy]

So no human being--not even Hillhouse--can make the ball break upward?

A riseball is the ultimate deception pitch. It takes advantage of something the brain does. It fills in missing information with what it expects to be there. I've seen videos of researchers showing people altered photographs and the assumption people made about them.

The human brain does some fantastic things on it's own. It does all the math in the background to figure what a thrown object will do. It computes the speed, trajectory, distance, resistance and speed of gravity in a fraction of a second and makes adjustments on the fly as to where the object will land. Any ballistic object on this planet falls at the speed of gravity. The brain makes the compensation automatically.

Science has shown the human body can't generate enough rpm's on a ball for the seams to overcome the weight of the ball. The best a human can do is to make the ball fall slower than the speed of gravity. To the brain the ball looks like it jumps upwards because it expects the ball to fall at its normal rate. The part of the brain that makes the trajectory calculations has filled in the incorrect information and fooled the side of the brain that controls the motor functions.

I'm no PHD. But this is my understanding of how the hitter gets fooled on a good riseball.

 

[shockcoach]

So no human being--not even Hillhouse--can make the ball break upward? His videos led me to believe many people *think* they throw a rise ball, but it's merely a high fastball. Yet he seemed to insinuate that it is possible to throw a rise ball that truly breaks.

But if the ball truly doesn't break, what does it matter if it has 12/6 spin or bullet spin? Or is the 12/6 spin simply to keep the pitch as flat as possible? If it's to keep it as flat as possible, then doesn't that go against what Hillhouse teaches, namely, that EVERY pitch needs to break in some way?

While the ball doesn't physically increase the angle of rise, when you're back their catching it, you will swear that it jumped up. I don't care that it doesn't actually rise, I care about the perception of the batter.

Sparky Guy has a good explanation of what happens. The brain sees a rise. End of story. Since the batter isn't using a video camera with 120FPS from the side to show it's just dropping less fast, it's a rise. That's what the batter sees.

 

[WaSpeed02]

Thanks for the explanations, Sparky Guy and Shockcoach. I'm glad someone set me straight before I taught her this pitch. I wouldn't want to someday get caught saying, "My DD's rise ball breaks 8 inches". lol

 

[Sparky Guy]

Thanks for the explanations, Sparky Guy and Shockcoach. I'm glad someone set me straight before I taught her this pitch. I wouldn't want to someday get caught saying, "My DD's rise ball breaks 8 inches". lol

Funny story. Years ago I was coaching a 10U team. My daughter was there at practice during her Christmas break. She wanted to throw before heading back to school. I asked one of my catchers if she wanted to see what it was like catching 63 mph pitches that moved. She said yes. I had her put her gear on and stand behind me while I was catching my daughter. I called for a rise and she threw a real good one. I could feel the kid flinch behind me as I caught the ball. Then all I heard was "Whoooaaa. That's weird." It gave me a good chuckle.

After watching a few pitches I asked her if she wanted to catch for my DD for a while. The kid said "Yes." So I put her behind the plate. I had my DD throw a change-up to her. To the kid's credit she didn't flinch or bail and caught the ball. The smile on her face was priceless.

 

[obbay]

Great info here- this year DD has not been practicing (or playing) consistently but she has done ok and has had a bit of luck.

She has been telling me that she thinks she has a riseball, and I keep telling her she doesn't . Other coaches have seen her and she has heard them telling their players that she does. I told her good, you've fooled them, just so long as you don't think you have something that you don't . Now after a tournament last weekend the catcher is telling her she has a riseball. In her words ..." I know what a high fastball looks like, and that's different from what you're throwing. Your pitch breaks up(ward) at the end".

I have no idea what she is doing but I guess it's time to actually work on learning the rise....

 

[Ken B]

So no human being--not even Hillhouse--can make the ball break upward? His videos led me to believe many people *think* they throw a rise ball, but it's merely a high fastball. Yet he seemed to insinuate that it is possible to throw a rise ball that truly breaks.

With no other reference to draw from, if you were to step into the batters box with Skinner, Hillhouse or other riseball pitcher in the circle, you would swear up and down that the ball jumped over your bat. Unless you saw the instant replay in slow motion, you would continue to believe this. Physics aside, the reality is that the rise ball does exactly what it's intended to do--deceive the hitter.

 

[Ken B]

Thanks for the explanations, Sparky Guy and Shockcoach. I'm glad someone set me straight before I taught her this pitch. I wouldn't want to someday get caught saying, "My DD's rise ball breaks 8 inches". lol

While "breaks" might not describe exactly what's happening, an 8+ inch change in where the batter expects the ball to be might as well be the same as break. It only takes 2-3 inches to be effective.

 

[Ken B]

Funny story. Years ago I was coaching a 10U team. My daughter was there at practice during her Christmas break. She wanted to throw before heading back to school. I asked one of my catchers if she wanted to see what it was like catching 63 mph pitches that moved. She said yes. I had her put her gear on and stand behind me while I was catching my daughter. I called for a rise and she threw a real good one. I could feel the kid flinch behind me as I caught the ball. Then all I heard was "Whoooaaa. That's weird." It gave me a good chuckle.

After watching a few pitches I asked her if she wanted to catch for my DD for a while. The kid said "Yes." So I put her behind the plate. I had my DD throw a change-up to her. To the kid's credit she didn't flinch or bail and caught the ball. The smile on her face was priceless.

I remember a rec ump seeing a rise for the first time and about hit the dirt. Got a good laugh from everyone. (Can't quite remember who that guy was...)

 

[eastcoast]

Like slingit said--it takes a machine to put enough revs on a ball to get it to curve upwards. Not even within the human realm. At best, good spin and speed will cause the ball to drop less than any other pitch

Ken,
Try pitching large wiffle ball ( same size as softball) as riseball pitch or at least reverse spin. You can see it really rises a quite a bit. So it wouldn't be big deal to rise the rise ball 1 or 2 inches.