Baseball Throwing Series - How To Throw A Baseball: Part 1
I had the good fortune to hear Branch Rickey speak and he was in his 80’s. I listened along with a lot of other coaches and scouts. I listened to Branch Rickey talk about, “What it Took To Become a Major League Baseball Player.”
He said, “A guy has got to be able to do four things:
1) Throw.
2) Run.
3) Field.
4) Hit.
He has to be able to do two of these things extremely well to play in the big league.”
He went on and said, “If he can do all four and hit with power, he is going to be a super star.”
Well, you have listened to all of these talks about hitting, pitching and fielding, but we must remember that Branch Rickey referred to one of the four as throwing.
I have had the good fortune to travel all around the country and watch kids all the way from professional to Little League and one thing that I have observed is that throwing is being neglected in a lot of areas. Because, you see, no one teaches a kid to throw. We learn to throw kind of the same way we learned to run. Remember how we learned to run? We smarted off to the big guys, they chased us. We ran.
In throwing, we just picked up the ball and started throwing. No one told us how to put the hands, you know, eleven o’clock, one o’clock, no one told us that. We just took the ball and started throwing but it is very important that we throw correctly.
I agree with Bear Bryant. He said, “All championship teams begin on defense.” I believe that.
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