Dorfman Harvey A. - The mental ABCs of pitching: a handbook for performance enhancement

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Copyright 2016 Anita Dorfman

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ISBN 978-1-63076-184-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63076-185-1 (e-book)

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Dedicated to Karl Kuehl,
Who saw the trail, built the wagon,
And put me in the drivers seat.

Not too long ago, I had a telephone conversation with 1990 Cy Young Award winner, Bob Welch. Bobby, who had been a devoted reader of The Mental Game of Baseball, ended our chat by saying. You know, you ought to write a book just on the mental game of pitching. Pitching is what the games all about. Pitching IS the game. You know that.

Well, yes, I do believe thatand, lo and behold, I found myself following his advice and writing that book. This book.

In The Mental Game of Baseball, Karl Kuehl and I attempted to help athletes, coaches, and fans understand the mental inhibitors to performance and to offer strategies for getting rid of those inhibitorsallowing the athletes talent to fully express itself. Easier said than done. We knew that. The responsibility for application was, is, and always will be the athletesentirely.

The Mental Game of Baseball is a fully developed presentation, with lengthy chapters on responsibility, dedication, mental discipline, and the like.

The Mental ABCs of Pitching is a handbook, so to speak, a more succinct A-to-Z reference guide to the problems every pitcher can face before, during, and after competitionand strategies for solving these problems. The book is meant to be a companion to The Mental Game of Baseball, not a replacement. Naturally, it is specific to pitching. The book is an alphabetical compendium of my 15 years of experience as a mental skills instructor/counselor with the Oakland As, the Florida Marlins, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The book is not all-inclusive for two reasons. First, I did not think it necessary to discuss everything I know about pitching. Second, I do not know everything there is to know about pitching.

The topics listed are the ones that most frequently (always?) come up when talking with a player about his pitching. I would wish the book to be comprehensive, but I realize there will be some topics not treated, either by choice or by inadvertent omission. Most listings are clearly interrelated; sometimes they seemand may well besynonymous. I would hope to spare the reader tedious repetitions. Yet, the interrelatedness should illustrate and emphasize the fact that effective pitching in competition results from the applications of a very basic core of mental principles. Pitching is not just the activity of physically throwing a ball. On the other hand, it isnt, and shouldnt be, complicated; people are complicated; baseball is not. This book speaks to that complexity and simplicity.

Some entries are quite brief, either because the topic needs no elaboration on the obvious, or because the topic overlaps with another entry in the book. Others, of course, require more expansive treatment.

These ABCs address the ways pitchers can inhibit and limit their effectiveness. More importantly, they reveal how these same pitchers, when allowing themselves to apply the appropriate mental skills to the simplicity of the game, can improve themselves and enhance their performance considerably.

The greatest percentage of my time has been spent working with pitchers. They are, after all, the sinecure on the baseball field, on an elevated stage of dirt, an island in a sea of grass (or turf); the only offensive player on the defensive field. Action begins when the pitcher delivers the ball. He is proactive; the hitter reactive. At least, thats the way it SHOULD be. All too often, however, the pitcher forfeits that edge.

This handbook is meant to help the pitcher recognize, develop, and maintain the advantage that is built into the game for him. It is, in the end, the pitchers responsibility to integrate these strategies and philosophies with behavior. Actions, we all know, speak louder than words. At the end of each entry is a most important section: WHAT THE PITCHER SHOULD DO. These are the mental and physical keys that will allow and encourage appropriate actions to speak for the pitcher. They are mainly mental activities, of course, that lead to the penultimate physical one of executing the next pitch.

It might be useful to the reader to glance at the complete Table of Contents before beginning the book. This will allow for familiarity with terms being used in the SHOULD DO sections. Helpful cross-references will then be made with greater ease.

I hope readers, Bob Welch included, find these references and entries interesting and instructive.

H.A. Dorfman

I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and life, whose fountains are within.

Samuel Coleridge

I have snatched my share of joys from the grudging hand of fate as I have jogged along, but never has life held for me anything quite so entrancing as baseball.

Clarence Darrow

A well-executed pitch is one of the most graphic images in sportsa joy to see. But it is more rewarding to be able to perform such artistry.

Tom Seaver

It seems appropriate that the first entry in this alphabetical book is ADJUSTMENTS, since conventional wisdom tells us that baseball is a game of adjustments.

To make an adjustment is to make a change, an adaptation. In the context of the baseball definition, it presumes a thoughtful, rational assessment of A) what the pitcher was trying to do, B) what went wrong, C) what he must do to fix it.

A key word here is rational. Too often, when something goes wrong for a pitcher, he reacts emotionally, not thoughtfully. I've witnessed a range of emotional reactions on pitching moundsfrom temper tantrums to submission and surrender. No poise, no rationalityno adjustment.

An immediate and very brief emotional reaction is acceptable, on the condition that it purges the pitcher of his unhappiness and frustration, and it's an internal reaction (not observable by opponents and/or team-mates). Only then is it possible for the pitcher to make an adjustment and get back to the business at handthe next pitch.

Making adjustments in the dugout after an inning is better than making no adjustment at all. Making an adjustment before the next hitter is better still. Making an adjustment before the pitch is best.