UTK Special 4/10/20
World Pitching Congress Available to Public
I must confess that I’ve never seen all of the movie “Moneyball.” I read the book of course and I’ve seen bits and pieces of the movie, but frankly, it’s weird. I know almost all the people that are portrayed in the movie and seeing different people playing them does some strange shift in my brain. I’m somewhat thankful Fantasyland never got the film treatment.
It’s a bit the same when pitching clinics happen. I have the privilege of knowing most of these people so when I have a question, I email or call them. It makes it a bit weird to see them in the kind of lecture/seminar settings. That doesn’t make them less valuable, especially at a time like this. In fact, it’s more important than ever to take this time we have and do something useful with it.
Not only was the World Pitching Congress one of the more valuable seminars around - add it next to Pitchapalooza* and the ABCA Conference for must-attends - they’re now doing some good in the world as well as giving you the content and knowledge you might have missed out on.
For every virtual ticket sold, WPC will be donating TWENTY percent to More Than Baseball and Advocates to Minor Leaguers. You can check out the links there for more info, but these are two great causes that you can support beyond just soaking up some knowledge that will really help pitchers as we move back into baseball at some point.
[Update: I originally had five percent going to charity. My error, it is twenty percent.]
The More Than Baseball 'Player Grant Program' is designed to provide immediate relief to the needs of minor league ballplayers and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic.In partnership with organizations like Our Baseball Life and their family fund, Gestalt Performance, and Big League Advance, as well as Daniel Murphy and Adam Wainwright, the MTB Player Grant Program is aiming to raise $2 million over the next 30 days to assist the whole of minor league baseball, close to 6000 players. MTB has raised close to $450,000 and would love to work with you all on raising a whole lot more.
They are also donating to Advocates for Minor Leaguers. Their mission statement is "We're here to provide a collective voice for Minor League players and to fight for better working conditions. Without a union, Minor League ballplayers have been left behind and have lacked a common voice to push for change. We're filling that void."
Seeing people like Dr. George Paletta, PJ Mainville, Ken Crenshaw, and more should be worth its to anyone who’s interested in pitching at any level, but being able to support charity makes it even more valuable.
One highlight for me was the presentation by Ben Hagar of the Diamondbacks. His talk about using a movement based lens recalls some of the primal movements talks I heard at ASMI about a decade ago, but a science I know next to nothing about has clearly evolved. There’s a lot of performance gains that could be made here and at lower levels, I’m not seeing this used at all, largely because this kind of physical/athetic therapy isn’t making it out of the PT/AT circles and into coaching. Admittedly, some of it is specialized, but I’ll be curious if a simpler version could be popularized.
Tyler White, who put on the conference, gave me early access to it last week and I’ve been watching and taking notes. Believe me, you’re going to want to check out everything that happened - then register yourself for 2021.
*If this kind of thing interests you, Lantz Wheeler has just done this:
Here’s one thought — we’ve given coaches a couple months to do nothing but think about baseball and all the time to get themselves even more ready. We’re going to figure out quickly which ones have done this best, but this has been an unprecedented period to prep baseball for significant change for the better. If we’re willing to play seven inning doubleheaders, what else could we make better?