How to Pitch a Softball

Female Speaker: If you are fan of softball, then you are going to love the Fastpitch TV shows sponsored by Easton Sports. Now the man that knows more about softball than any one on the planet, your host, Gary Leland. Gary Leland: Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Fastpitch TV show. If you are watching us on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook or another video sharing site, please check on our website fastpitch.tv, it's a place to find all of our past episodes and our future episodes, and I also like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsor, Easton Sports. The truth is there is a difference, the difference is Easton. Now I want to thank Easton, without them we wouldn't be here, and you check out their website at eastonsoftball.com. That today we are bringing back professional pitcher, Fastpitch pitcher and pitching instructor Bill Hillhouse. Bill, was on last weekend, and after the interview of last weekend interview,he gave us some gave us some pitching instructions. So today we are going to watch the pitching instructions or pitching tips that he gave us. He gave us two of them and they were both about 5 minutes each, so I am going to play them back to back, okay. So this is some pitching instructions or tips, are just his philosophy on pitching. So let's watch, and I hope it's going to be enjoying. Bill Hillhouse: One of the basic philosophies that I try to instill on to young pitchers and their parents, is we are going over the fundamentals of pitching mechanics. Is that high and low pitches or generally timing related problems, inside and outside pitches are mechanics related problems. And teaching a pitcher how do they are doing it by, what they have done right, and, what they have done wrong? Based on where the ball goes, it goes a long way in teaching her how to correct the problems in games and in practice situations. Now pitchers, right-handed for example, who have a tendency to throw inside to right-handed batters, do so, more often than not, because they have been taught to bring their hip and their hand through at the exact same time. As they bring in their hip, their hand through at the exact same time, what happens is, the ball has to change directions to get around my body, and it gets pushed inside toward right-handed batters. And worst when somebody throws outside to a right-handed batter, it's generally because they got the ball through their hips, okay. But their shoulder was offline when they went to let go. You bring the shoulder right back in line, ball goes straight towards the catcher. So generally speaking outside pitchers have the tendency because of the shoulder. Inside pitchers are because of their hip. Now the inside pitchers problem happens a lot more than the outside, because of the follow through that many young girls are taught. Girls are taught for the most part to bring their hip and their hand through, and they finish straight up with the elbow pointing to the catcher. Now I am more of a believer that the underhand motion is the overhand motion turned upside down, and when you go to throw a ball overhand, our arm does not come straight down here. It actually comes across to your body. Power in sports, regardless of the sport is done across to your body, it's not done straight forward. So whether you're talking about boxing, where jabs are straight and the knockout punch comes across. Or whether you are talking about volleyball where they throw the ball up, and they spike it with everything they got. They come down across their body. Pitching here is no different. I don't want to simply bend my elbow straight up. I need to whip my elbow. Now I don't care if my hand actually finishes across my body or not, touching the shoulder, but I need to make sure that my elbow whips. The same exact way that a baseball pitchers elbow needs to whip. But girls are not taught to do that correctly a lot of times from the start, because they are taught to do a lot of wrist-flip drills which actually teach them to straighten their elbow, and to not use their elbow. In the follow through, you combine those two things, and we got a lot of pitchers who don't actually use their elbow to whip the pitch, they simply bend it, and they are going to lose a tremendous amount of power. One of the more common pitching styles today that many girls are taught and they just simply copycat, is this rocker style motion where they start here and they bring their hands straight back like this. Now personally, I don't pitch this way, I am not a fan of it for three different reasons. Number 1, as soon as the pitcher drops out and comes back like this, they have a tendency to lock their elbow. Now 99 out of 100 girls that lock their elbow, never unlock their elbow on the way down. Their elbow stays completely stiff and they actually bring the ball up and their elbow down at the exact same time. This completely negates any whip that they would get out of their elbow, which is absolutely essential for us, any pitcher that throw their hardest. So number1, they lock their elbow. Number2, as soon as they drop out of their glove, they have shown the batter the ball prematurely, not only they've shown the batter the ball prematurely, and the batter is now can focus on the ball, but they are also showing the grip that they have on the ball. And anybody who doesn't think that hitters today, the great hitters are able to see the grip that you have on the ball when you bring the ball out of your glove, is kidding themselves. Great hitters are great hitters, not because they are lucky, it's because they know what they look for in pitchers. You are giving it to them like this. We don't want to show the batter the ball, we don't want to show them what pitch we are going throw, in the same spirit there are catchers, don't just put signals up in the air, they actually hide the signals from everybody, pitchers need to be hiding the ball from everybody as well. The third reason I am not a big fan of doing this motion, is it, when they go to get their momentum going forward, not only is their elbow locked, not only are they showing the ball to the batter, but they have a tendency to only have one arm helping their momentum go forward. If only one arm is helping their momentum go forward, they are losing the other half. Just think of how you jump up in the air if you are playing basketball or any other sport, you use both of your arms, just bring up in the air. Pitching here is no different. I need to use both halves of my body to explode myself forward, to get the most out of everything I have got. Gary Leland: As normal, I hope you enjoyed the show. I really appreciate Bill taking the time. Like I said, not only did he give us an interview last week, then he took the time this week to give us some tips also. So Bill was a really nice guy. He said he flys into the Dallas area here every six weeks to give lessons. But you can find out about that on his website. But don't forget to checkout our website, www.fastpitch.tv, become a fan of the show at facebook.com/fastpitchtv, follow some twitter at twitter.com/fastpitchtv, no dot in there, fastpitch.tv. Now it's time to say good bye to our sponsor, Easton Sports, without them we wouldn't be here and I appreciate it. Thanks for watching.