When I think of great throwers, I think of Nolan Ryan and Bob Gibson. But, Greg Maddux, now he was a great pitcher. All these guys are Hall Of Famers!
Of course, "throwers" are also pitchers. But I think there is a difference. If you were a batter facing Nolan Ryan, you had better be ready for a 98 mph fastball. He also had a good curveball. But you would have sat on the fastball, and you might see three or four in a row. You knew what was coming, and it was his strength against your strength.
Bob Gibson dominated in the 1960s to the point that they lowered the height of the mound. His 1.12 ERA still stands, and like his fastball and slider, may be untouchable.
Greg Maddux had a couple of signature pitches, a fastball in the 90's in his early career, and three or four other pitches he might use. If you were a batter facing Greg Maddux, you had to be ready for anything.
I think a thrower can become a pitcher, but not all pitchers can become an overpowering thrower. Both can help their teams win games, make all star rosters, and maybe even get in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Just Throw Strikes
Minor League baseball - A look waaay back.
The minor league Chicks practiced on Wilson Avenue, in Tullahoma, in a vacant lot, where Whiskey Trail and Wendy's are now. Before Whiskey Trail, Crockett's restaurant was in that building, and before that, Shoney's. Before Shoney's was built, the lot was about six feet lower, and prone to flooding when it rained and Rock Creek got out of its banks.
Before all those restaurants and fill dirt, the field had a small backstop, three bases, and home plate. The coaches kept it mowed.
My dad's store, Minit Saver Market, was across the street. I spent a lot of time at the store, and so when kids showed up across the street to practice, I went over to see what was going on.
They didn't run me off, and I stayed. The coach went over and talked to my dad, and I started practicing with them. When the season started, I was on the team.
Two or three times that summer dad came over at the end of practice with cold watermelons, or a igloo cooler of Slush and some cups.
Baseball was great fun, and I was making new friends. I always had a baseball in my hand. Somewhere during this time, it was decided I'd be one of their pitchers.
They helped me work on my control, and counted on me to provide enough velocity to just get it over home plate. "Just throw strikes," I remember them saying. Greg Butler and Ryan Callins took turns playing catcher, Geno Callins was our shortstop. We had a pretty good team.
Make them miss it
Little League - Ok, you can throw strikes, now...Make them miss it.
After minor league, I moved on to the the Cubs in Little League. Larris Boles, Jerry Hargrove, Woody Underwood, Bill Wagnon, and Raymond Welch were the coaches.
Coach Welch taught me how to throw a curve ball. This changed everything. And, it provided a way to make the batter miss the ball. So I went from, "Just Throw Strikes." to "make them miss it." Looking back, this was the first step in going from a thrower to a pitcher. They also had me throwing a change up, and I already had a back yard knuckle ball, and a decent fastball.
Coach Boles was a fast pitch softball player, and he sometimes threw it that way in batting practice. Talk about keeping an eleven year old batter on his toes. He knew a lot about baseball and was a good teacher. His son, Rusty was a good player and team mate.
Coach Underwood said some things I still remember. If he saw somebody slacking in practice, he would say, " Like my old Latin teacher used to say, praxi, praxi, praxi." It sounded enough like "practice," that we knew what he was saying, and that bit of humor got us back into it mentally.
Tom Brussard was our catcher my first year. He was a big strong kid and a good player.
Lee Brown is a year younger than me, and was our catcher on the Cub's when I was eleven and twelve. We were also on the same team in Babe Ruth. Lee was a tough kid, and a great competitor. He would find a way to kick your butt. My fastball moved, or "hopped" a little, and if I pushed down with my index finger, and followed through with my wrist, the ball spun counter clockwise like a screwball. The little hop, and this slight movement to the right caused some problems for Lee. To this day, he blames me (with a smile) for his left thumb pain. I tried to throw this pitch inside, hoping to jam a good right handed hitter, and make it harder to get the best part of the bat on the ball. Turns out I was also jamming up our catcher.
Throw it by them
They tried to make me a pitcher. Because of my stubbornness, I was still mostly a fastball thrower. If a good batter made a good swing, the ball went a long, long way. Leon Williams and some other guys figured this out way before I did. The younger players were tough too. Wayne Shaw, Lee Deckleman, and Sam Melton come to my mind. That little bit of spin on the ball trying to move it in or out also made the ball go that much farther. Good batters could see the ball spinning, adjust their swing, and hit it.
Joe Brown, John Greenwood, Gary Arnold, Mark Hollinshead, and some other guys had a fastball that was as good or better than me. They could throw it by batters.
Greg Bailey was a lefty and an outstanding pitcher. He could strike you out, or ground you out. When we were 12, we played them and he and I pitched. 27 batters struck out. They beat us five to four.
Understand the strike zone
Somewhere along this time, the coaches taught me all about the strike zone. I learned that you can nip the corners, and the umpire might call a strike. That included a curve ball that entered or exited the strike zone as it passed over home plate. Also, I began to think of the strike zone like looking at a honeycomb, with lots of places and ways to throw a strike.
This mental and tactical shift meant I didn't have to offer the batters the same, predictable, repetitive pitch (fastball) for them to settle in on and hit.
I realized during this time, I enjoyed pitching. The pace and intensity of the game, was largely up to the pitcher and catcher. I never minded that.
Coach Jerry Hargrove helped me learn to think like a pitcher. He talked about situations, and to always be prepared. Examples: Always...know the count, know how many outs, where the runners are, where the other team is in their batting order. Did this batter hit it last time? Trust and depend on your catcher, infield and outfield, and other nuances of the game.
Coach Hargrove was also super competitive, and still managed to keep the game fun for all of us. We had to run laps around the field after practice. Coach Hargrove ran with us. If you were to have any chance at all of beating him, you had to save some energy for the last 100 yards. He even made running laps fun.
John Greenwood is a year younger than me and was an outstanding pitcher for the Cub's. He learned well from all those same coaches. When John was having a good game, he was hard to beat. Roger Bates, also on the Cubs, was older than me, and had a wicked curve ball. Big Terry Underwood threw really hard, and I also played with his younger brother Jimmy on the Cub's team. Scott Hargrove was a really good pitcher for the Cubs, and I also played with his little brother Kenny.
David Cline, Bruce Brayton, Mitch and Steve Jacobs, Troy Mathis, Lee Boatman, Steve Morris, Donny Fulks, and a bunch of other guys hit the cover off the ball, and played good defense. We were 11-2 when I was 12.
Growing up and just having fun
Babe Ruth ball
I played for Dr. Pepper. Some of the coaches were, Buck Campbell, Raymond Welch, and James Mobley.
By now the good hitters had gotten better, and most of us 13 year old pitchers were just finding the strike zone from the longer distance. Hitters had the advantage again. Jay Campbell was our ace. I learned a lot by practicing with him, and watching him pitch. By the time I was 14 or 15, most of the pitchers my age had gotten stronger and could hold our own with the hitters again. Lee Brown was our catcher. I was glad we were on the same team again. We worked well together and trusted each other. Joe Sheffield was on our team. He was already about 6'4" and still growing. Joe used that leverage and was a good pitcher, a smart player, and a good team mate. Stan Welch was our shortstop, a good hitter, and a natural athlete. Ken Keller, Fred Wagnon, Donnie Chris, Tom McCord, Chris Ray, Vollie Stone, Marty Curry, Jerry Broadbent, Darren Hyde, and a bunch of other guys provided the defense, and a generated a lot of offense. Greg Butler was on that team. He and I played for the Chicks together. Joey Fann played in the outfield and had great speed. This was a time of pure fun, and for three years, we practiced and played a lot of baseball, and made life long friendships.
One other guy, Kelly Howard comes to my mind. He was my neighbor, in Mt. Vernon. We rode the same school bus. Kelly played for the Realtors. He was nearly full grown at 15 years old. He had long blonde hair, a hard fastball, and at this point in his baseball journey, not a great deal of control. Kelly sent two players to the hospital on the Babe Ruth opening day. Each team played two innings in the opening day Jamboree. Everybody was there. Kelly broke one guys wrist, and hit another guy in the back of the leg so hard they worried he might get a blood clot. I learned from watching Kelly, and hearing other players talk about him, that fear could be a factor, and a little unpredictability and craziness could go a long way.
Tournament teams and the post season were more serious. I got to play for different coaches, like Gary Gilliland, Bill Hollinshead, and Monty Stewart. But Babe Ruth baseball was all just fun to me.
Make them hit it!
High School Baseball - So what if you can throw strikes, and sometimes make them miss it, now...Make them hit it !
High school ball at Coffee County Central High. Coach Rusty Melvin is fourteen years older than me. So when I was 16 and 17, he was barely 30. Coach Melvin was still in great baseball shape. He played at Father Ryan in Nashville and college ball for Bob Cerv (NY Yankee) at John F. Kennedy College in Nebraska. He practiced and did the drills with us everyday. Coach Melvin hit off the pitchers as well as throwing most of our batting practice.
I was a pretty good thrower at this point. Coach Melvin did all he could to make us all pitchers. Dwayne Anderson threw really hard and had a good curveball. Wade Pierce was also a talented pitcher. Troy Turner had a good arm and good control. Mark Moore and Robin Jernigan were left handers that threw really hard. We worked a lot on conditioning, and stretching. Doug Schmidt was the varsity catcher and a senior. He worked with us younger guys and helped us adjust to the high school game. A bunch of guys pushed us and made us better. Mike Rust, Doug Bradshaw, Daniel and Dennis Benedict, Tracy Yother, Bruce Smith, and Larry Campbell come to mind.
During this time, I learned the importance of keeping the ball low and out of the center of the strike zone. Instead of overpowering batters, we tried to get ground balls and pop ups. A mistake in high school could be a home run. Every team we played had good hitters. The goal was to throw strikes, but not straight down the middle. We tried to make sure the pitches that were not strikes were still close enough that the batter might swing. This was another paradigm shift for me, and further separated throwers from pitchers.
There were still times and games where we tried to overpower batters. In my sophomore season, Randy Armstrong was our ace. He had a good fastball and a sharp mind for the game. Randy could overpower batters. I knew him petty well because we had just finished a season of basketball. Randy was a senior, and a tough guy. He tolerated the sophomores, and made sure we earned our place on those teams. As tough as he was on the field, and in the dugout, he was willing to give us younger guys a ride to practice, or to Bob's pool room on the square, or where ever we were all going. Once he knew I was serious about baseball, (and basketball), he helped me out a lot.
By the time I was a senior, my fastball had decent velocity, and dependable control. On a good day, I could locate the ball pretty much where our catchers, Mike Biankowski and Ritchie Koger wanted it.
Also, a pitcher can't be too predictable, so every now and then, whether I meant to or not, somebody got one in the ribs. (Thank You Kelly Howard) I remember when we played district rival Lincoln County in Fayetteville, I hit three batters. Then late in the game, I hit one of them for the second time. It was a close game, and Coach Melvin came out to the mound. I recall him saying something like, "Damn Stone, you trying to get us killed?" Then he smiled big and told me I had done a good job. He took me off the mound and put me playing first base. I stood next to the twice hit batter, hoping he would say something first. Thankfully, he was not mad. I told him I was just trying to survive out there, and he said, "I know." He recognized the value of a being on base in a close district game more than being upset about getting hit. That was a good lesson that has stuck with me about seeing the big picture.
Love and appreciation for the game
American Legion Ball and Senior Babe Ruth
American Legion Baseball coaches Mike Powell, Joe Warren, and Looney Riddle kept us focused and continued to teach the fundamentals.
Most all of these guys, more importantly, coached their kids and other's kids in baseball. and other sports. The lessons and love for the game from Coach Mike Powell, Coach Melvin, and all the other coaches before them were passed along. Another generation of players learned how to win, how to lose, and how to show respect for each other, and the game.
Last Pitch
Senior Babe Ruth was the last organized baseball I played. By now, most of us had full time jobs, college classes, and other adult activities that made us truly appreciate a good ball game. Most of these games were on a week night, under the lights, at Grider Stadium in Tullahoma. Still a fine place for a baseball game!
Motlow Bucks.
We grew up close to Motlow college. When I was small we went to alot of baseball and basketball games. I had always imagined that I'd pitch for Motlow when the time came. Walk-on, scholarship, whatever, I just thought that would happen. I didn't know if I would be good enough. But that test, and the process of trying to make that team, stay on it, and contribute, was something I looked forward to. Unlucky timing for me and a bunch of other local guys, budget cuts in the mid 1980's meant no baseball at Motlow. It was over.
Throwers and Pitchers...which one was I?
Maybe I was a thrower that daydreamed about being a pitcher. If you knew me then, hopefully you remember I was just a kid with a baseball in my hand, and happy to have some friends around.
