Learning To Pitch In Sarasota

In the spring of 1990 in Sarasota, Florida shortly after the White Sox broke camp and headed for the still cold streets of Chicago, my 14-year old son Andy decided he wanted to be a pitcher. With us living in a spring training town, we had rather easy access to major league pitching coaches. So, all it took was a telephone call-and money, to set up the lessons.

 

Andy had several weekly lessons with a White Sox pitching coach, and almost daily homework with me, his catcher. We actually built a pitchers mound in our rented back yard. (I hope our ex-landlord isn’t reading this, although we did restore the yard to almost normal.)

 

I was impressed, not only with how the coach was teaching Andy to stretch before a workout, but by the way he taught him how to throw a slider, curve, fastball and change-up. Being his catcher, with my old Wilson catchers mitt, I was having a little trouble catching the slider. Andy did strike out a lot of batters later that year in the Pony League. Too bad he didn’t keep pitching. He’s in insurance now.

Related posts:

1. Time to Pass the Baton
2. Chicago White Sox Training for Kids
3. My Catchers Career Ended Early
4. A Boy Dreaming of Spring
5. My First Season as a Catcher