halskinner
Banned
- May 7, 2008
- 2,637
- 0
Okay. The mental thread is getting fairly long in the tooth so I am going to start a different one here. This was going to be a response to the lastfew posts on that thread and its a styleand mechanics issue I beieve and is getting pretty off the topic of the original thread (notthat that is anything new here). So here goes;
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I was a batboy for my Dad's team starting at 5. I told him I wanted to learn to pitch and he said, "OK. Go sit over there, stay outof everybody's way, shut up, watch and learn". So that's what I did in between running for bats. I got the opportunity to talk with a few of the older pitchers that used a different style/ wind up than my dad after the game was over. Some did not have time for a snot nosed kid, some were very nice and did take the time.
From everything I was told when I was young, by older pitchers, the handful of pitchers that used a wind up other than the traditional leap and drag, everyone pitched with a step style until just several years before WW II.
When WW II started, guys who played in baseball leagues and were serving aboard submarines, they wanted to be able to practice their pitching while they were out at sea but they had a major problem; the hallways and other areas where they might be able to were too low and they had lots of pipes hanging down even lower. So they developed what is now baseball’s ‘Submarine’ style wind up.
Again, according to these old timers, that were nice enough to take the time to talk to a little kid after their games, the softball guys on those same subs started doing it too. They couldn’t use their normal full wind up either, so they came up with three or four variations of the baseball submarine wind up. These guys all demonstrated the wind up/s for me so I could try and duplicate what they did. I don’t recall seeing any of them using an aggressive forward push off the rubber, like some of the leap and drag pitchers of that day did. However, I was fairly young then, before high school for sure so some of them may have pushed off. One thing they ALL said was the timing of the different moves (mechanics of the pitch) were very crucial if you did not want to hurt yourself.
From what I learned from them and have read here and there, it seems that all softball pitchers were step style until just prior to WW II.
I had been learning and using leap and drag since I was 5-years-old. I tried to imitate what the old timers had shown me but never became good enough in my own opinion, to use them a lot. Only one seemed to feel right and seemed safe to me. I am sure I did not have the timing right on the others. However, that one variation they showed me I did have the timing right and I practiced it a lot. I could not throw it quite as fast as my leap and drag. However, that wind up was so quick the ball actually crossed the plate a little sooner than it did when I used the L and D. So I would use it a few times during the game just to irritate the other team.
Around the time I was a freeshman in high school, around 1970, they had allbut disappeared fromany of my Dad's tournies, they hadall hung up their cleats.
It is also the only ‘step style’ wind up I taught when I was an instructor. I never taught that wind up as a ‘Bread and butter’ pitching style, it was always an additional style for a Leap and Drag pitcher with either the traditional or double pump wind-ups, it was one of many tactics the pitcher could use.
Many instructors in my area would start of a young (and small for their age) pitcher with the step style. At some point I might get the referral for them to change them over to L and D. I did just that and they would go back to their instructor a stronger and more confident pitcher.
As (I think it was Bill) said, many pitchers using a step style have had just tremendous careers and became quite famous in their day. When I watched them when I was young, they seemed every bit as successful, every bit as fast and had just as much movement as the L and D pitchers. There are still instructors out there that used step style andt hose different wind-ups but they are few and far between.
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I was a batboy for my Dad's team starting at 5. I told him I wanted to learn to pitch and he said, "OK. Go sit over there, stay outof everybody's way, shut up, watch and learn". So that's what I did in between running for bats. I got the opportunity to talk with a few of the older pitchers that used a different style/ wind up than my dad after the game was over. Some did not have time for a snot nosed kid, some were very nice and did take the time.
From everything I was told when I was young, by older pitchers, the handful of pitchers that used a wind up other than the traditional leap and drag, everyone pitched with a step style until just several years before WW II.
When WW II started, guys who played in baseball leagues and were serving aboard submarines, they wanted to be able to practice their pitching while they were out at sea but they had a major problem; the hallways and other areas where they might be able to were too low and they had lots of pipes hanging down even lower. So they developed what is now baseball’s ‘Submarine’ style wind up.
Again, according to these old timers, that were nice enough to take the time to talk to a little kid after their games, the softball guys on those same subs started doing it too. They couldn’t use their normal full wind up either, so they came up with three or four variations of the baseball submarine wind up. These guys all demonstrated the wind up/s for me so I could try and duplicate what they did. I don’t recall seeing any of them using an aggressive forward push off the rubber, like some of the leap and drag pitchers of that day did. However, I was fairly young then, before high school for sure so some of them may have pushed off. One thing they ALL said was the timing of the different moves (mechanics of the pitch) were very crucial if you did not want to hurt yourself.
From what I learned from them and have read here and there, it seems that all softball pitchers were step style until just prior to WW II.
I had been learning and using leap and drag since I was 5-years-old. I tried to imitate what the old timers had shown me but never became good enough in my own opinion, to use them a lot. Only one seemed to feel right and seemed safe to me. I am sure I did not have the timing right on the others. However, that one variation they showed me I did have the timing right and I practiced it a lot. I could not throw it quite as fast as my leap and drag. However, that wind up was so quick the ball actually crossed the plate a little sooner than it did when I used the L and D. So I would use it a few times during the game just to irritate the other team.
Around the time I was a freeshman in high school, around 1970, they had allbut disappeared fromany of my Dad's tournies, they hadall hung up their cleats.
It is also the only ‘step style’ wind up I taught when I was an instructor. I never taught that wind up as a ‘Bread and butter’ pitching style, it was always an additional style for a Leap and Drag pitcher with either the traditional or double pump wind-ups, it was one of many tactics the pitcher could use.
Many instructors in my area would start of a young (and small for their age) pitcher with the step style. At some point I might get the referral for them to change them over to L and D. I did just that and they would go back to their instructor a stronger and more confident pitcher.
As (I think it was Bill) said, many pitchers using a step style have had just tremendous careers and became quite famous in their day. When I watched them when I was young, they seemed every bit as successful, every bit as fast and had just as much movement as the L and D pitchers. There are still instructors out there that used step style andt hose different wind-ups but they are few and far between.
