Getting from 9 o’clock to 12 o’clock ?

[earlg3]

If you youtube mens softball pitchers, you just get a bunch of gentlemen that are walking a fine line between leaping and crow hopping, so if they (as its been mentioned here multiple times) kind of ignore the legality issues of a crow hopping in mens fastpitch, it seems it'd be less beneficial to watch them.

For reference, top 2 videos:

I suppose it's a little more viable now with the rule changes on leaping in the women's game, but before then it seems like it'd be much more beneficial to watch apples:apples.

Obviously you know 100000x more than me, but it seems like there would be cascading effects due to the leap/crow hop that it would even make it difficult to benefit fully when even isolating to even just the arm mechanics (trying to take out the lower body differences).

 

[Hillhouse]

If you youtube mens softball pitchers, you just get a bunch of gentlemen that are walking a fine line between leaping and crow hopping, so if they (as its been mentioned here multiple times) kind of ignore the legality issues of a crow hopping in mens fastpitch, it seems it'd be less beneficial to watch them.

For reference, top 2 videos:

I suppose it's a little more viable now with the rule changes on leaping in the women's game, but before then it seems like it'd be much more beneficial to watch apples:apples.

Obviously you know 100000x more than me, but it seems like there would be cascading effects due to the leap/crow hop that it would even make it difficult to benefit fully when even isolating to even just the arm mechanics (trying to take out the lower body differences).

With all due respect, you sorta made one of my points for me. Truth be told, I had several things in mind when I wrote that. lol.

I think you, and probably several more on this board, think all male pitchers have questionably legal mechanics. And that's just wrong. While the majority of male pitchers do have a large jump, and they do crow hop without question, there's plenty who don't pitch like that. It's a pretty broad brush to paint all guys as crow hoppers and think that's the only way guys pitch. Now, I'm not butt hurt or offended by anything. I just wish that wasn't the #1 stereotype that comes to mind when people think about male pitchers.

 

[earlg3]

With all due respect, you sorta made one of my points for me. Truth be told, I had several things in mind when I wrote that. lol.

I think you, and probably several more on this board, think all male pitchers have questionably legal mechanics. And that's just wrong. While the majority of male pitchers do have a large jump, and they do crow hop without question, there's plenty who don't pitch like that. It's a pretty broad brush to paint all guys as crow hoppers and think that's the only way guys pitch. Now, I'm not butt hurt or offended by anything. I just wish that wasn't the #1 stereotype that comes to mind when people think about male pitchers.

Fair enough! Who would you recommend that does have mechanics more similar to the traditional women's game? I would love to learn more.

 

[Bonesaw]

Bill, please (pretty please) post some decent quality video of yourself pitching NCAA mechanics if you have any.

Doug Gillis and Jeremy Manley are good models of NCAA legal mechanics on the male side.

 

[Shawn]

Fair enough! Who would you recommend that does have mechanics more similar to the traditional women's game? I would love to learn more.

He would say Mike White.

 

[Hillhouse]

Fair enough! Who would you recommend that does have mechanics more similar to the traditional women's game? I would love to learn more.

I'm not sure I have an answer for that. And I'm not trying to be difficult but I don't know what "traditional women's" mechanics would look like. The women's game is changing very rapidly, especially over the last 4-5 years where everything in pitching has changed. It started with allowing only 1 foot on the rubber, and now we're at a point where girls are actually being taught to crow hop. We are finally at a place where there are the same rules for male and female pitchers in the USA. Prior to now, the USA was the only country in the world that had different rules for the 2 different genders. But that was mostly about money, it had nothing to do with men and women playing softball. But I digress.

Unfortunately, I don't have any video of myself pitching at all. While the internet was a live since the mid 90's, social media didn't get rolling until I was nearing the end of my career. These days several teams stream their own games, there's company from the Toronto area that puts a ton of games on their YouTube channel, with announcers, replays, multiple camera angles, etc. Go onto YouTube and look up Softball Premier they have a ton of games achieved, both men and women.

Bonesaw mentioned a couple names. Gillis is an interesting one, he pitched with a big jump for a long time. But he knew that if he could learn to pitch "legal" that he'd be almost guaranteed a spot on the US National team. What few American males that learn to pitch usually learn by jumping and crowhopping. Gillis worked harder than anyone I know to transform his own pitching to where he could pitch internationally for the USA. He's one of the only ones I knew to do that. Most guys put playing for their club team ahead of playing for the National team. It's not uncommon for USA and Canada to lose some of their best players if there is an International event (like Pan Am games) that conflicts with their club teams. Gillis was pretty much the opposite, he put his National team appearances ahead of the club team stuff. And yes, Jeremy Manley (pitching coach at AZ state) was the best in the world at one point in the late 2000's. But other names you could look up are Andrew Kirkpatrick, Marty Grant, Peter Meredith (PC at BYU). The NZ pitchers in this video are legal, I think. Someone also said Mike White, and that's true too. White is on Mt.Rushmore of the all time best. It's hard to explain how good he was.

Anyway, men are known for some massive jumping pitchers. And true, there's plenty of those. But there's also plenty who didn't pitch like that. Especially when the International rule didn't allow jumping.

 

[ArmWhip]

An interesting variety of styles in the video; leap and drag; big crow hop; leap-no drag; small crow hop. And they had a safety base at first.

 

[sluggers]

@Hillhouse

Aren't the mechanics the same after the leap and after the right foot comes down?

 

[Hillhouse]

An interesting variety of styles in the video; leap and drag; big crow hop; leap-no drag; small crow hop. And they had a safety base at first.

Yes, this was the 2004 ISF (International Softball federation) which is now called WBSC. I think they require the safety bag.

But as I've mentioned before, I was on the executive committee of the ISC (International softball congress) and they did a lot of research on the safety bag. While I was not on that committee and not privy to their research details, they came back and recommended to not have a safety bag. Their research showed that safety bags do not prevent as many injuries as people think, and the majority of injuries that do happen at 1st wouldn't be avoided with the safety bag. Without question, it's not a bad thing. And an argument could be made to put one in just because. Even if it only prevents 1 small injury, it'd be worth it. But their research clearly showed it doesn't do as much as people think.

That video, with those 2 teams at that point in time would've displayed the fastest pitchers in the world at the time. Interestingly, one of the Canadian guys is now the USA softball male pitching coach. I think he's the pc for all the male teams. He's got a few videos out on YouTube where he's working with some younger male pitchers from about 3-4 years ago. One of the other Canadian pitchers now operates a girls travel club from the Saskatoon area called 222's. They come to the US and play a lot of tournaments in Orlando, Las Vegas, etc.

 

[Hillhouse]

@Hillhouse

Aren't the mechanics the same after the leap and after the right foot comes down?

I think so. Fundamentally, the human body is pretty similar for males and females, with some very obvious differences. But, we teach girls to throw overhand the same as boys, right? A girl shortstop isn't taught to throw differently, field the ball differently, etc. Girls catch fly balls the same way as boys. The run the bases the same way as boys. And now most hitting coaches will swear up and down that the swing is the same for males and females, which is why there's so many baseball guys giving softball hitting lessons.

Even look at other sports. The golf swing is the same, isn't it? Girls shoot 3 pointers the same way, don't they? Female MMA fighters get their victories the same way as males. I'm not aware of any differences in swimming strokes between the 2 genders. I'm 99.9999999% sure boys/girls play waterpolo the same way.

But it's only softball pitching that people seem to think there's a girls way and a boys way. Actually, it was only the pitching rules that were different. Now they're the same for everyone everywhere.