We are in the middle of week two of the winter practice season, less than a month before we open up against Milsaps College at Piedmont College's field. Some of our opponents are opening up already this weekend.
I'm sure I have already written this, but I am really looking forward to getting this season started. Last year I missed our trip to the Regionals at Marietta because I spent a couple weeks in the hospital. I still feel some guilt over not being there, but I am definitely better off being healthy. I was losing strength during our season in 2010 and that is not so good. So there are times when I figure I owe my players and fellow coaches something due to last May's absence.
In saying that, we have now had eleven of our pitchers throwing live to hitters in the cages. Thursday and Friday the remaining twelve pitchers will have their first cage experiences of this pre-season. I have tried to take videos of our pitchers during their live outings this week. Although I am just using the video camera on my phone, which obviously is not the high quality of a more advanced digital camera, we are able to see the mechanics involved with the deliveries of our pitchers. I transfer the videos to my laptop, view them, and email each pitcher the copies of his videos.
I am certainly a few years late in using video for coaching and helping the pitchers see their deliveries for themselves, but I'm catching up with those young coaches now in that regard. It has only been two nights worth of videos, but it allows for another avenue of communication between the pitchers and myself, and communication is such an important part of being a coach.
Hopefully I'll get myself a new video camera before we begin our game schedule, so that we can record from the dugout or another appropriate spot and we can get and give more feedback to help us succeed and get back to the Mid-East Regional Tournament and the DIII College World Series. In the meantime, I feel good about what we are doing this week!!
What I have seen so far is that we are not yet in mid-season form, but that doesn't occur until mid-season anyway. The pitchers are all throwing 40 live pitches in this week's appearances. We haven't thrown any breaking balls to the hitters yet, but our changeups have actually been better than I anticipated and our fastballs are getting there. We have to be able to locate our fastballs if we are going to beat the good teams on our schedule.
Another positive that is taking place is that our pitchers all seem to be pretty healthy right now. There are a couple leg issues, back issues, and the occasional brief illness interrupting a few guys, but the arms seem to be healthy.......at least that's what the pitchers are telling me.
Tonight we get to practice at 6:30 instead of 10:30pm, due to the snow storm that closed schools and even Adrian College today. Finishing at 8:30pm rather than after midnight is much better for this old guy's sleep patterns!!
Gordie Theisen
http://gtathletic.com
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