2 or 4 seam fastball?

[coachdan]

Finger pressure for movement is not used in fastpitch. Another thing not to waste time on when a novice young pitcher.

I know Hillhouse talks about using finger pressure to make the ball cut in or cut out.

 

[starsnuffer]

He is a veteran pitcher, not a novice with small hands who has other things to worry about. Plus, male pitchers, or those with experience in baseball, prefer that method.

Most of the women prefer not to use that approach.

I think most women are never even taught that approach to have the option. They're taught mostly by men who think that they are too small and fragile to use their fingers, thus they're taught all kinds of wrist acrobatics to use to spin the ball (rollover drop). I'm just ranting, my daughter throws a peel and a rollover and uses whichever the coach of the moment tells her to.

-W

 

[redhawkridge]

Hillhouse was the feature speaker at the Wisconsin coaches annual clinic last month. He acknowledged that he has ridiculously large hands. That fundamentally limits the applicability of his expertise to the average female. For most girls pitching, if you ask them to apply a differential in pressure to either of the pitching hand's fingers, all you're going to get is a wild pitch.
Jim
PS Bill H is a fantastic lecturer and an expert in the science of pitching. But his guidance is focused on a level of pitching that is beyond females 16 and under, and probably even most of those 18 and under

 

[curiousgeorge]

Redhawk, my organization has had Bill speak before too. I don't know that it's accurate to say his focus is guided that way. I think he tailors what he speaks about based on what the organizers want. I know he did that for us.

I completely disagree that his info is not applicable to the average female. Quite the contrary. I think Starsnuffer said it best, most girls aren't given an option of doing things NOW that they will NEED later. Bill's entire premise is to tell people that he was also once a 12 year old pitcher, as is your DD and he experiemented with EVERYTHING your DD is going through. All grips, all pitching motions, everything. He doesn't tell you to pitch one way now, then change later as you get older. He starts you on the path now that you will need long term. And if you he shows kids how he made adjustments along the way as he didn't always have 'ridiculously large hands'.

I would agree with you that if you tried finger pressure pitching on a girl that is not ready for it, you will get wild pitches. But isn't that where your pitching coach should know what she is ready for? Don't make a 10 year old try to do what an 18 year old can.

 

[Hillhouse]

I truly get a kick how some people like to lump "male pitchers' into one category. Some believe men can do things because of their size, their strength or because their "hips don't get in the way" as they do for girls. Etc. Etc. and a lot of those arguments are nonsense. Do people not realize that men (even male pitchers) come in all shapes and sizes? That there are short male pitchers with small hands, skinny guys without bulk, and fat guys who have big "hips"? Being a male doesn't automatically qualify someone as being able to pitch or do everything that a top pitcher can do. I was not born with hands as big as they are now. And I had to learn how to hold pitches based on my hand size at the time. While I'm absolutely blessed (as is anyone with big hands) to have them now and it helps me a lot, it was not always this way. And I know some GREAT pitchers who do not have large hands.

Redhawk... curiousgeorge is right. While I do think I covered some of the basics, I was told the clinic was geared more towards the high school age pitcher, not 10U travel ball. So I kept my topics on things for the more advanced pitcher.

Bill

 

[Coach Stan]

Finger pressure is great for those who can apply it. I am 5'7" and weighed 170 lbs when I pitched in men's major 1969 to 1985. I was taught to use finger pressure but found that I could not apply enough to make the ball move the way I wanted it to. So I stopped using it and worked more on my wrist snap. When I started teaching in 1975 I tried teaching finger pressure to the few kids I was working with 1 boy (13) and 3 girls (14 thru 18). All of them had the same problem I had with control. Also they had small hands. So from then to today I do not teach finger pressure for ball movement I work on wrist snap.

 

[CoachFP]

I'd have to say that the fingers spin the ball and impart movement much more than the wrist does. The wrist is not agile enough to do much of anything with its limited range of movement.

 

[Coach Stan]

Of course the fingers are used along with wrist. Or they are used simultaneously to get the ball to spin and break in adjacent to what breaking pitch you are pitching. I do not just teach finger pressure to get the ball to spin, break or for location. Next time I will be more specific.