I meant to put the account of Max’s 9U game on the last post, but it became an epic so I didn’t have time. It’s all I can do lately to go to work, beat the bridge, make Max’s game, go home and check fantasy while drinking Birch Beer and eating Cheese-Nips and then go to bed to do it again. As soon as Max’s rec ended with the World Series, the 9U travel league kicked in with a vengance, and, the 8U’s begged him to come and play with them because he’s still 8 and is eligible, and so they put him on their roster to help with jam-ups. In this case, the jam-up is that the town accepts all kids at 8U level and makes two, balanced teams out of the mob. Other towns do not do this, so the effect is that blah-blah is playing a B-team, vs all these other towns’ A-teams. I pity these kids ;oP
So yesterday would maybe have been an off day and there we were playing the 8U game. Max did well and it made me appreciate the much higher calibre of 9U ball.
The day before, Max was the starting pitcher in his 9U game. He is coming off the buzz of the Dodgers’ World Series win, so he’s fired up. Do you know he went 4 innings? 80 pithces in 4 innings and he only surrendered 1 run. That was a flukey run as well. First and Third, 2-dead, and the catcher overthrows Max on the return throw (Mackey Sasser, anyone?). Just out of his reach, it falls behind the mound and the kid on 3rd alertly scoots home because now we have these very liberal baserunning rules where the ball is basically live all the time and the stealing is unlimited. I’m not much of a fan of that because what it tends to do is accentuate the difference between the two squads. In our first game under the new rules, we played a team ranked #1 in NJ and they keel-hauled our boys 25-0. Max was off winning the World Series and I was glad he didn’t have to take that beating, particularly on the mound. The next game, we beat up a team 22-8 and it wasn’t even that close–the ump was “homing” by everyone’s account and gave our pitcher a saucer-sized strike zone while I watched Max get called out on a ball a full 8 inches off the outside black. Blue was a nice guy, just ridiculously unfair.
So Max’s only run surrendered is this overthrow run and he comes up to me on the sideline and tells me that the run wasn’t an Earnie! I almost fell over. How does an 8-year old boy know that? Fantasy baseball. He plays in my league with some help from his dad and myself and he has become very knowledgeable about stats and what they mean and even on the PC as far as navigating; and that’s exactly why I wanted him to do it. He finished 2nd last year and took $50 thanks to Jonathan Broxton of the Dodger giving up his only 2 jacks all year, the week Max was playing my boss (who had Broxton). It was hilarious. Fantasy will do that.
In his 81 pitches, he only threw 2 “changeups”. The first was off the plate but the 2nd was textbook–nice and low and the kid came out of his shoes swinging over the top of it by 8 inches easily. I was glad that he was confident of the fast ball and cutter and stuck with that. His cutter is really amazing. He discovered it by himself in his backyard on his pitchback. He told me that he just moved his thumb over and it cut and you ask me, he controls it slightly better than his 4-finger fastball grip and so I always tell him to throw it.
It DOES cut. In to a lefty as Max is a RHP. If there’s no wind and he throws it perfectly and hard, it can cut 5 inches and the cut is a bit late and sudden, about 10 to 15 feet off the plate you really see it go. If, as was the case in the pennant-clincher vs the Mets, there is a stiff 3rd-to-1st breeze, the ball will cut more than 5 inches. The wind is a factor when you are looking at these boys throwing between 35 mph and about 43 mph. How do I know that? I bought a tennis-serve radar gun off ebay and it clocks the speeds and from time to time I break it out to alleviate boredom amoung the kids mostly. They go wild over the radar gun and I get a good read on the relative speeds of the boys and who is catching up to whom. “…So Mikey’s fastball is 41mph, hmm?”
Then, because you are sooo familiar with one boy’s fastball speed because you catch it every day, then you peg everything else you see off of that, and you have a pretty accurate picture of what is being thrown. And by the way, balls thrown below 35mph don’t really move at all. They have a pronounced “hump” to them. North of 35mph, you will begin to see the ball move because it then has enough speed for the airflow around the stitches to do it’s thing. When I was a kid (and even now) I would get sinker movement on my basic fastball (that’s in to a RHB from RHP). It is amazing to me how so many of these boys’ balls have cut movement on them (away from RHB from RHP). It is also amazing to me how many of these boys seem to be throwing a baby slider deliberately on the each pitch. I see that little slider dot on so many balls that come in. Some are trying in vain to throw a breaking ball in each pitch and in other cases, I think it is just a vagary of the shape of their hand.
Look at your hand. The middle finger, ring finger and pinky, all descend in length so the ball SHOULD roll off the hand (right hander) to the pinky side on release. Now on the fastball, most of the spin is backspin, but those shorter fingers favor the ball coming off slightly to the pinky side and that gives you the natural sinker-tail, in to a Right-hander from a RHP. You pretty much have to TRY and get the opposite, cutter spin on the ball, dontcha? I mean, hold it off center or put finger pressure on the right side of the ball, or turn your wrist? I don’t get it. But I don’t want to make them aware of any spin and wrist action. Let them find out the way I did–behind the toolshed. My guy, I take care of, but I can’t very well do that with OPK (other people’s kids).
What’s the takeaway on this pitching sidebar? ALWAYS tell your kids to throw a 2-seamer. Why? Easy. (1) It’s about 1.5 to 2% faster than a 4-seamer, because there is less wind resistance–only 2 seams cutting the air and not 4. We’ve borne this out on the radar gun as well, by the way. (2) If the boy has any side spin on his basic fastball, be it cutter or sinker spin, the 2-seam will take advantage of that and give you a little movement once they start to throw harder than 35mph or 40mph. –Fog
