But something else happened on that day that our attackers did not foresee.  unity.  Amongst the rubble and the dust a perfect flower sprang forth.  The racial boundaries were gone.  The gay bashing ceased. And for a time, you would have thought we all believed in the same God.  Our attackers had created what this nation was meant to be, a nation of tolerance.  A nation where all men and women are created equal.  A nation where you are only judged by your actions toward your neighbor.

It truly was a sight to behold.  But it was a sight that only lasted a moment.

It is now 2010 and here we are.  Turn on the news and we remember this day through hatred.  We remember the death, not the life that arose from it.  We burn the religious documents of those that attacked us, but terrorists are the minority of every religion, so we mostly hurt those that never intended us harm.  It is sad to see that this is how we honor those who died.  We now divide ourselves when it was unification that pulled us through.  We’ve taken our greatest achievement amongst tragedy and turned it into an example of the disgusting nature that is hatred toward each other.

All I can do is urge us to embrace not only our families on this day, but to embrace our fellow Americans because this is where we find our greatest strength.

Basically it’s the connection between the various parts of your body.  Just to help illustrate, take your finger and wiggle it back and forth.  Congratulations you’ve just created a kinetic chain!

So now you guys are asking, why is that a kinetic chain?  Basically think of your finger moving as a flow of energy with a start and an end.  In terms of your body this flow of energy is completely controlled by your nervous system acting upon your bones and muscles.  Your brain wants to move your finger, so it sends a signal along your nervous system that will set off a chain of events within your muscles, bones, ligaments, and tendons allowing for the action to be completed.

So in reality everything we do involves some sort of kinetic chain.

What does this have to do with baseball?

The answer is simply everything.  If it’s used in everyday life it’s obviously going to be used in baseball.  So why am I discussing it?  Well I’m here mostly to talk about applying a proper kinetic chain to the pitching motion.  I want to talk about it because the pitcher is probably the most important position on the field.

Now I’m not gonna talk about every single step involved in making a good pitch.  I will outline the greater points.

1. It starts with the legs. Some people wonder why pitchers do the crazy leg kick (some are legitimately crazy at that) at the beginning of the windup.  Well it has two important roles for the pitcher.  First it helps establish proper timing.  In other words, when my leg is here my hands, arms, etc…should be here.  Secondly it sets off the kinetic chain by shifting the bodies weight forward towards home plate.  Really if you don’t do this, you’ll be bouncing a pitch for sure.  On top of this the plant foot should land bent and than restraigten as the body continues to move forward.  Landing on a straight leg or not restraigtening the leg pretty much stops the chain.
2. Next comes the hips.  The the hips should rotate before the shoulders in the kinetic chain.  This creates a sort of “whipping” motion with the throwing arm that helps generate more velocity.  Proper hip rotation is always essential.  Not properly moving the hips (or doing anything before this point improperly for that matter) causes the body to need to over strain other parts of the body to make up for lost energy.
3. The arm and hand are the last things to go. Everything you’ve done to this point is about transferring kinetic energy into you arm and hand so that a good solid pitch can be made.  Really if you do everything with your legs and hips properly there should be very little use of the arm to make the pitch.

So to link everything together really quick.  The brain says “make the pitch.”  So it sends a signal through the nerves to the feet, where the chain kicks off.  From there various muscles and bones move beginning with the legs, than the hips, through the torso, into the shoulder, and eventually into your arms and thus your fingertips where all that energy is transferred to the baseball.  Than the baseball ends up flying through the air hitting Nick Punto in the ribs (HAHA TAKE THAT NICK PUNTO).

Again, why is this important?

Well its the threat of injury that makes proper technique important.  If it hurts to bend your knee, you use your back more to pick things up.  But if you’ve always just used your back to pick stuff up (improper lifting technique by the way) than you’ll just end up hurting your back.  Basically you use other parts of your body more than necessary when improper technique is used.  Overusing parts of your body can cause injury.  But if you properly distribute the work load through out the body to the parts designed to handle the needed effort than injury can be avoided.  This is why an injury should never be played through by a pitcher.  The violence and shear energy generated by the motion can cause a greater injury than the one being played through.  Such as if a pitcher slightly tweaks a hip.  To make up for lost strength in that muscle the pitcher will use other parts of the body more than necessary, increasing risk for greater injury or multiple ones.

So to wrap it all up…

Kinetic chains are the reason why technique in not only pitching, but everyday life is important.  Improper energy transfers through the body can put too much strain on parts of the body and thus cause an injury that may not have happened other wise.

So the problem I have right now is the same problem that I have now is the same problem that I’ve had for months now. Everyday I end up asking myself “why do I do what I do?” And the answer is I don’t know. And that is hard for me to take. I am a guy who can always provide an answer, if I don’t know it right away I’ll find soon enough. Not knowing is scary for me and in trying to find the answer I’ve come to realizations about myself that I didn’t want to realize. But still I try to find the answer.

And here I go.

I think the first step in finding the answer is establishing the question. Which is “why do I do what I do?” That’s the broad form of the question anyway. At this point I have it broken down into tiny little bits that I can think for hours upon hours upon. But I digress…what is it that I actually do?

Alas, this is another question I don’t know the answer too. I always tell myself that I do things differently but when I think about what it is I actually do, I don’t really see myself as different. So what is my problem than? For every question there is an answer, why can’t I find mine? I might as well have some computer tell me it’s 42 and than get on with life because that’s about this is all amounting too.

Really all I know is how I feel right now. Constantly I feel alone. Despite living with 3 other people or hanging out with the one person I call friend, I just feel alone. But can that be the problem? I’ve felt alone for a very long time now. Longer than you can imagine. Essentially I’ve felt this way since I was a child. Why is now different? Why is loneliness suddenly trying to ruin me?

I know that a lot of who I am comes from that feeling of being alone. I let myself care too much for other people because I don’t want them to have to feel that they need to do something alone.

I keep to myself because I always have trouble believing that anyone cares. People ask what’s wrong all the time (especially one person) but I always manage to tell myself that they don’t really care.

Lastly, I never trust a single soul to do the right thing. It’s been the experience of my short life so far that people do bad things to good people often for dumb reasons. If I could figure out if I’m a good person or not, I’d be more able to trust I think because than I’d be more able to figure out who the bad people are.

I’ve felt alone for so long that I don’t know if I want to not be alone. The thought is kinda scary to me. This fear I feel has made me do things to ruin chances at happiness with people that I’ve let myself care possibly too much about. I feel like I’ve sabotaged myself and whatever chances I may have had I’ve ruined and in my mind I’ve ruined them to a point where I don’t know what I have anymore.

I know that right now, being alone doesn’t make me happy. But I fear it reciprocate. Happiness has consequences as well. What will I lose? What will others lose? Will I stop being the me that makes people trust me? Or is it through these god aweful emotions that I lose the trust that others have in me?

I guess right now the thing I fear the most is the answer because the answer could create more problems.

Originally I didn’t plan on doing a post this soon because I wanted to do some more studying of pitching mechanics and provide some more in depth information for you guys. But than NCDee requested Max Scherzer and I decided that he would be what I studied around and would be my next post. So than I looked for a video, found one, and saw some…things. Figured I’d tell you guys because this guy to me is interesting. The things after the jump.

First off HERES the video. It’s actually a very nice one at that and shot fairly recently.

On to the analysis.

The Good: Well, it’s hard to explain what’s good about this windup. He seems to get a good wheel action with his throwing arm. We’ll just go to my next category…

The Goofy: I can fill this one up with stuff because Max’s delivery, well it’s got goofy written all over it. I’ll bullet the goofiness.

* He brings his glove over his head. I know this is semi-common among pitchers but I have problems with it. Basically it’s unnecessary movement and such movements can mess with a pitchers timing and timing is pretty essential to maintaining the kinetic chain of the windup. Now to explain kinetic chain simply (and badly): it is essentially the series of motions that the body (and it’s muscles/bones) go through to create velocity, control, and movement on the pitch. So this unnecessary movement can become easily mistimed (rushed or slowed) and thus throw off the series of events needed to make a good pitch. Having to bring the glove over the head and back down can lead to either breaking the hands to early or to late. Too late being after forward motion begins, too early being before the leg kick reaches it’s peak. Ideally, forward motion doesn’t begin until the hands break.
* He swings his leg after the kick. This is once again wasted movement. There is no real good reason to swing your leg in your windup. I feel part of the reason he does this has to do with the extra time it takes for him to get to the point where he’s ready to break his hands. By swinging his leg he isn’t creating any forward movement at all but keeping his body at the start position essentially. Again, a timing issue that could cause him to move forward before he’s ready to enter the “wheel” motion with his throwing arm.
* Dudes got two different color eyes. That’s just plain old goofy. Nothing to do with pitching mechanics really, but goofy none the less.

The Bad: Heres where I explain the bad stuff of the delivery. These things are likely to cause injury due to unnecessary stress to various parts involved within the kinetic chain and/or cause lost velocity/control.

In the case of Max Scherzer the beginning and middle parts of his delivery are well…goofy. Hands over the head, swinging the leg, multi colored eyes. The end of the delivery however, reveals some problems that absolutely need to be fixed. I’ll number these points in order of appearance in the video.

1. The first occurs with the plant foot. One thing I’ve learned so far is that you plant your foot on a slightly bent knee and than have it straightened again by the end of the delivery of the pitch. Looking at Max Scherzer it at first appears the the leg never straightens. Which in it’s self is a bad thing. I mean really your just stopping your whole body from moving forward, which is the point of even stepping forward in the first place. This is bad for velocity for one thing and too make up for the lack of velocity, it becomes very easy to try and use to much of the arm to try and add velocity to the pitch. This puts undue stress upon the throwing arm. If you watch carefully though you’ll see that the leg does straighten, but it’s more of a snap of the knee. So now we have two problems going on here because the snap of the knee doesn’t particularly address the issue of restraightening the plant leg and for anybody that has ever violently moved a joint before, you know that that quick jerk of the knee can’t be very stressless. To me this equals problem.
2. This could be 1B really because both these events occur at practically the same time, but the glove hand comes back behind the body during/after the pitch. Kinda defeats the purpose of all that other stuff involved in getting your momentum moving towards home plate. Even though in the negative affect of this particular motion is essentially nil to the larger positive affect by all previous motions, it really shouldn’t be there. Combine it with point one and your just stock piling negativity a crucial point in the delivery: the release. Ideally, the glove gets tucked into the armpit and remains there until after release. There really is no cause for injury alert here though.
3. This one is very slight and the only reason I remember to check this is because Kurt posted a link one time regarding someones (might’ve been Max’s) pitching mechanics. And what I’m about to say is something they addressed in the video. After the pitch watch the pitching arm. What Max does is stop the arm and than swing it in front of him. Basically the problem is this, you should never forcibly stop your own body while making a pitch. It’s why you continue to throw the ball when the batter steps out, it’s part of why you restraighten your leg, it’s why you let the arm move naturally after the pitch. To stop anything from it’s natural motion is to cause undue stress to the body. At this point we’re truly messing with the pitching arm. Last I checked the pitching arm was important. This may be small but it’s unnecessary risk.

MadPoopz final verdict: It appears that our newly acquired pitcher has some bad habits. Fortunately these habits are very fixable. Justin Verlander learned to bend his plant leg for the ’09 season, I’m thinking that Max can learn to straighten his. Based upon the fact that Rick Knapp had Justin learn to bend his leg, I’m thinking that Knapp has noticed all the things that I have just pointed out and will help Max accordingly. The positive spin here is that these fixes have impact on things like velocity. If people thought this kid had potential before, fix this stuff and than we’ll really see what kind of potential is there. Don’t expect the goofy stuff to change though. There are lots of successful pitchers out there with some goofy goings on in the windup…no real reason to mess with Max’s. After all, it’s good to be unique.

Given the boredom of the offseason I decided to start studying something that has piqued my curiosity. That curiosity being being pitching mechanics. After some studying of my own I decided why not have the BYB community here either learn with me and/or help me learn along the way? I don’t know if I’m the first member here to delve into this area specifically but I think it’ll be a fun experience for us all. Plus posting stuff here will give me reason to keep on studying it.

I really couldn’t think of a way to properly break this down because good video is hard to come by if you don’t get it yourself and I really don’t really have the means to do that nor do I have any real way to do frame by frames with videos. So I did some looking around and the best way I think I can do this for you guys is via a checklist I found from pitching.com. The checklist after the jump.

***

So I figured I’d start easy and look at a guy who has some pretty darn good mechanics. That guy is Justin Verlander. The tall, hard throwing, right handed, former ROY, and ace of the Tigers staff. Heres the best video I could come up with via pitchingclips.com.

Here are the advantages of different view points from video. From the side I can more easily see things like how high the elbow gets, when the hands separate, arm swing, foot separation, how high the knee comes. From the front side I can see a few important things as well. Where the head points, where the plant foot lands, arm action after the pitch…basically things regarding how the pitcher lines himself with homplate.

Now the checklist based upon the video from above. (note: because I only have the one video, I’m forced to skip a few checkpoints. I’ll still cover what I can I’ll offer some extra explanation to other things after the list.)

1. Speed of movement/Tempo: This is easily analyzed with frame by frame video, but I don’t have that but it’s obvious that Verlander moves fast. Check
2. Is the pitcher relaxed? This is more of a judgement call if you ask me. But Verlander’s whole windup looks fluid from start to finish with no stressful looking motions. So I’d say Verlander is pretty relaxed. Check
3. Does the pitcher move from a bent leg to get lower leading with his front hip and does he land on a flexed leg in a straight line toward the plate? You’ll notice in the clip that right before Justin moves his plant leg (front leg) forward he bends his back leg. The advantage in this is it allows you to get your plant leg the proper distance forward which is approximately 80-90% of the pitchers height. Verlander does this. So check.
4. How does the plant foot fall in relation to home plate? This to me is very important because this can affect momentum. Seeing how most of a pitches velocity comes from the core and legs and not the arm anything involving any part down in those area’s can affect velocity but location can also be affected. If the foot is pointing to far back, the entire bodies forward momentum is affected thus affecting velocity. If the foot is turned too much toward homeplate, over rotation of the hips and shoulders can occur and affect location by misaligning the body. I can’t see his foot but given his ’09 season, I’d say he’s doing ok. Shoulder alignment at release at least tells me his foot isn’t too far forward. Check.
5. Is the pitcher properly generating forward momemtum? Lumping a few checkpoints together here because a bunch deal with this in mind. I’ll just tell you guys what I see. Hands separate before moving forward? check. Front knee come to stomach/chest level? check. Hips rotate before shoulders? check. Arm is swung instead of picked up? check. All of these things deal with gaining momentum to drive the pitch and Verlander does them all. Check.
6. Is there any unnecessary movements? Moving side to side, leaning forward/backward, strange motion with the leg kick, etc. Verlander doesn’t do any of that stuff. He aint Dontrelle after all.
7. How is the head positioned at ball release? Ideally a pitcher is looking forward at this point (towards home) and the head is over the knee of his plant leg. This is easier determined by a side view but I can make a pretty good judgment from this view and say it looks pretty good. check.
8. Do the hands move in rhythm with the legs? Now here is one problem I have with Verlanders windup but it is a small one to me given the high tempo at which he works. Normally or at least ideally the pitchers hands move toward the chin at the same time the leg kick begins with the plant foot. This is about rhythm aka making sure the hands/arms don’t get ahead of the legs/core. No rhythm means less velocity and poor location because everything becomes disjointed. It works for Verlander because you could call starting his hands at his chin a quick hand raise that matches how quick is leg kick and succeeding movements are.

Just a couple more points about pitching mechanics.

* The elbow should never go above shoulder level. This causes undo stress upon the throwing arm.
* Do not over extend the joints. Basically your plant foot should be bent upon landing and your elbow of your throwing arm shouldn’t be straight.
* The glove should be tucked up into the arm at ball release. This helps create a more natural follow thru thus reducing stress upon the throwing arm.
* Always remember that most of the velocity on a pitch comes from the core, hips, and legs. Proper planting, pushing off, and rotation are very important to gaining velocity. When executing a pitch properly the actual throwing arm should feel very little stress.

Hope you guys enjoy this. I plan to keep on studying this stuff and doing breakdowns of other players mechanics. Mostly I’ll point out the bad instead of the good points and connect them with stats/pitch fx. If theres a guy you want me to try and breakdown mechanically just let me know. If you think of someone please try to find some video for me. I can judge more from side view than I can a front view. At least at this point in analysis ability.

WELL GUESS WHAT! WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU SURE AS HELL AINT ALWAYS GOOD FOR ME!

The thing we like to pretend to do with life, with how we analyze other people, is we like to lump people to together. Generalize their lives, make people generic. We like to pretend that if we can find a generalization large enough where we can lump everyone together, we can make one big generic solution.

Guess what? There already is.

IT’S CALLED THE HUMAN RACE! AND THE ONLY THING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US HAS IN COMMON IS THAT NONE OF US ARE THE SAME!

So what does that tell us about the great big solution? Is it life ran by bureaucracy? Is it some utopian society? Nope. Your wrong if it’s either of those.

OUR DIFFERENCES MEAN THAT WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR OURSELVES!

I don’t often try to spit angrily at people’s beliefs on society or politics, but in a world where every single person is an individual how can we claim to be a society based around the principles of equality?
Affirmative action programs, scholarships granted based upon skin color…it’s all a load of bull. Is it too much to ask for that we just all get the same amount of government help? If we look at the largest generalization of people, how can we have affirmative action programs and still came to be an equal society?

THIS NATION HAS FORGOTTEN WHO IT IS AND WHAT IT STANDS FOR!

Here we are a good portion of the way through the regular season playing for the second straight year under a rookie head coach. That coach? John Kuester, the man more commonly called “Q.” Unlike his predecessor in Michael Curry, Q does not truly define what a rookie head coach is. He has multiple finals appearances in his coaching career, a championship ring with the Pistons, and the tutelage of some of the games best head coaches. So to call him a rookie head coach is a bit much.

So here we are in the beginning of a head coaching career needing to look at how he’s done. So to start off, lets look at what he has. The Pistons roster looks like this. Look up and down it and you see a pretty good situation for a new head coach to get in too. It’s a roster with no ego’s to play up to. Three rookies fighting for playing time. An old center and point guard at the tail end of their careers looking to pass on their knowledge to the youth and put a stamp on their basketball legacies. Plus a few guys who can not only score, but play unselfishly as well.

A head coach review is never easy. There are no head coach stats outside of win/loss record, so much of what you think about the coach comes from the players he/she coaches. The problem is that a coach can work his ass off and still not get a player to hit the shots or move their feet on defense. The flip side is that a good coach can get his players to work for him because they respect him. That’s where my review begins….Does Coach Q have the respect of his players?

Yes he does. All you have to do is watch this team play to see that. They fight tooth and nail for him despite the plethora of injuries that have befallen this team. This team respects him because he made the right first move as head coach: he got the vets respect. Without guys like Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins buying into his system the fight of this team isn’t there. When the young guys see an old fogey like Big Ben hauling in rebounds by the truckload, they naturally say to themselves “the system works for him, it can work for me too.”

So he has the respect of the vet’s and in turn the respect of Detroits youth movement. This is a good thing. There’s alot of youth on this team to need respect from. So now I move on to how he’s used the rookies. All of us at this point know about Jonas Jerebko. I’ve given my fair share of praise to the guy. Jonas just always works. What impresses me is that Q has given Jonas this chance. So many rookie coaches would have automatically given the job to the guy who was the first round pick. That wasn’t Jonas, it was Austin Daye. Obviously it wasn’t like he needed to keep a big name player happy. Austin is still a rookie. But Jonas wasn’t even the main back up to Tayshaun Prince before he got hurt. To jump him up to starter at this point seems like an act of coaching genius. Not only are we getting awesome play out of a rookie, we’re getting a boost of energy every time this Swede touches the ball.

This takes me to Coach Q’s lineups. Chucky Atkins, Rodney Stuckey, Jonas Jerebko, Jason Maxiell, Ben Wallace. Those are the guys who started the last game. One rookie, one “energy guy,” a talented young guard, and two savy vets. Does the lineup impress? Not at all. Is it working? Yes it is. It works for one reason. The big names on this roster are willing to come off the bench. On a team where the big name scoring guards are down for a bit, a guy like Charlie Villanueva could easily expect to start, but as I said earlier Q has gotten this team to buy into his system.

So what is Q’s system? Is it run and gun? Slow and steady? Defense oriented? Offensive oriented? To be honest I have no clue. All I can say about his system is that it preaches that every player on this team play as hard as possible. That no matter what the score says there is still a chance to win the game. When all seems lost you don’t just stand there, you do something about it. That appears to be his system so far. To sum it up into one word: Fight. Plain and simple.

I can’t call John Kuester the greatest head coach ever. He is after all a just a really experience rookie. It is safe to say though that he is a pretty damn good rookie head coach.

To be chivalrous today is almost like being sexist. The word today almost exactly applies to the treatment of women. The whole ladies first attitude in general has killed the meaning. While those attitudes are nice, they should be applied to ALL people. Not just women. The unfortunate consequence of chivalries death means that man will die. Sure there will still be guys around. But they will be guys without direction. Guys without the knowledge that it takes to be a man. Do the rules of chivalry only apply to guys? No. But I see the death of chivalry occurring alarmingly quick among the male sex.

The dictionary defines being chivalrous as being “courteous and generous.” That is a terrible definition if you ask me. To be chivalrous is to stand up for equality. To be chivalrous is to be honest. To be chivalrous is to hold yourself accountable. Chivalry has nothing to do with holding doors, watching your language, or saying please and thank you. Chivalry has everything to do with the belief that all men are created equal. If you hold the door for a women, you also hold it for a man. If your willing to give a dollar to a poor man, than you are also willing to give a dollar to a rich man. Creating a society in which all men (and women) are treated equally is a primary goal of chivalry.

Accountability is another core belief of chivalry. We are all human, prone to the ability to screw up. Chivalry is not law, but ideals. To be unchivalrous isn’t necessarily a crime. So to hold yourself responsible for those lapses in judgement is the mark of being truly chivalrous. Being accountable means you know when you make a mistake. Knowing when you make a mistake means you know when you need to make something right. To improve a situation or yourself. Accountability means you know how to grow.

Finally the chivalrous individual is honest. The truth may hurt, but it is a mere cut compared to the wound that a lie can create. The truth reveals the problems. Knowing where the problems are means that a solution can be found. Lies cover the problem until it boils over. Often the mess this boiling over creates is unfixable.

Equality, Accountability, and Honesty are the ideals of chivalry. They are not law. They are guidelines to not only create better people, but to create a better society as a whole.

My answer is an understanding. You feel alone when you do not think that anyone around you has the capability of understanding your problem(s). Pretty simple. Although the emotional trauma of loneliness is something terrible. Loneliness essentially feels like death. A big part of you is lost and in desperate search of something. So what is the map? Where is the compass? What is that essential item that can deliver us from desperation?

One person is all it takes.

The unfortunate part of loneliness is that not just any person will do. If that’s all it took none of us would ever be lonely unless we were left out in some god forsaken part of the world. This all ties in with my previous post. You need the right person in your life. The difference between this post and the last is that you need this particular person to be what you need when you need them to be it and you need to do the same for them.

Pretty much I’m talking about a soul mate here.

I’ll use myself as an example here. For most of my life I’ve been an emotional and physical super structure. I’m 6’5″ tall and weigh about 330lbs. I’m built like a house physically. Mentally I’ve hardly ever let my emotions dictate what I do or how I act. Physically I can always be that person (although losing some weight would be nice), it’s the emotional part of me that can be difficult to always control. So now I identify the right person for me in my life. What I need (at least I think) is someone to be my emotional rock when I faulter. I need someone who will pick me up when I’m down.

So now you need to ask yourselves what you need a person to be in your life. The sooner you identify it the sooner you can find that person.