What is Balance?

Thanks to; The Greedy Pinstripes

I love that picture, it really shows why ballplayers always say..."The legs are the first to go" and why one can see pitchers running all the time.

Look at the pressure put on his plant leg, the same is true of his push-off leg......! Pitchers and other players have a weak spot...their legs (hip) any problem of any sort can make the best, become the ordinary or worse!

That is why one can see the better and best players working out every day and spend more time with conditioning trainers in the off season.

Milkey and Cano couldn't keep up with A-Rod when he had them join him in his work-outs. That is the type of work one HAS to put in to stay at the top.

Many think a pitcher quits because he has lost something off his pitches...true, up to a point...many things will make one lose something off his pitches. What ever one has lost, the break on the pitch (Mo) the speed (CC), one can trace it back to what I call "The Balance"!

The Balance is very simple to understand;

With a pitcher: His arm is in front of his body or, his body is out of sync with his arm, anyway one wishes to put it...his balance (sync) is off!

See how his release, body, weight, is in harmony with his back leg off the ground...this is the typical "Drop and Drive" of a power pitcher.

Ed Note: This is something as a closer, with a fast ball around the 82 mph, never ever tried to do. I didn't ever throw an FB, just "Junk"! lol

Let's look at hitters: Balance is the key word here as much as with a pitcher.

Let's take three different hitters shall we?

Jeter...the Hit King of the Yankees...Hits off his front foot a lot of the time because he is an inside out hitter (most of the time) and has trouble with rightys when they cross him up with a low on the black pitch after throwing inside at the hands. His weight (Balance) is gone as he reaches for the ball.

Now try Tex: A typical pull hitter; he sits on his back leg with an upper cut in his swing, put a breaking pitch on the inside and low, not good results from him. he will top it to the side he is hitting from or...swing and miss it completely.

Now we come to A-Rod: the best all-around hitter on the team...

He is a typical power hitter that tries to hit the ball "on center" if he gets the timing right, it will go out (HR). If he is off a bit, he can hit the gaps with power or, (if his balance is off a bit) it is nothing at all!

He spreads his weight out and is balanced at the plate, he will swing with his weight on-center...need not sit on his back leg at all! He has upper body and lower body working in harmony with his turn and front foot planted (on time).

If any one of those things gets off center at all, he is wasting time at the plate!

One can understand why he has had trouble the last few years, with a bad hip his timeing is off. With out being able to sync his turn with weight shift he is swinging with his upper body alone...shall we say, Not a Good thing?

Things to be grateful for, this year!

Over the last few years we have had  the "core 4" plus 1 (Bernie), they have helped bring us many years of world series championships and playoff runs.
Alas, now they are gone, save one, our SS. Jeter is in his last year so we all must hope he goes out with a bang.
So many years of watching some the greatest Yankee teams of the 50s' and the bad of the 70s' and 80s' with some so so years in between.
One thing I can say for sure is, I have had the privilege of watching some of the best Yankees of my lifetime. This is a list of the best of that time;
A-Rod--3rd
Mickey--CF
Joe "D"--RF
Yogi--C
Munson--C
Elston Howard--C
Cano--2nd
Jeter--SS
The "Scooter"--SS
Frank Crosetti--SS
Mattingly--1st
Clete Boyer--3rd
Bobby Richardson--2nd
Roger Maris--RF
Whitey Ford--SP
Eddie Lopat--SP
Allie Reynolds--SP
Mel Stottlemyre--SP
Vic Raschi--SP
Red Ruffing--SP
"Mo" and Righitti--RP

Eddie Lopat a Young boys Mentor--Pt #1 of 3

Eddie Lopat, “The Junkman,” teamed with fireballers Vic Raschi and Allie Reynolds to form the Big Three starting pitchers on the New York Yankees’ five straight World Championship clubs from 1949 through 1953.
In his debut, on April 30, 1944, he lost to the St. Louis Browns, as the Browns charged toward their only American League pennant. In his next start, May 4, he beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-1, and went on to establish himself as a major-league pitcher. He also established his mastery over the Indians; he compiled a 40-13 career record against the team the Yankees often had to beat to win the pennant.
Over the next four seasons Lopat won 50 and lost 49 for a White Sox club that never had a winning record. He developed a simple and direct philosophy of pitching: “Get the ball over the plate and make them hit it.”
In 1946 future Hall of Fame pitcher Ted Lyons returned from the war, and Lopat sought his advice. Lyons showed him the slow curve and the short-arm and long-arm deliveries, which gave Lopat twice as many pitches, and generally put the finishing touches on a pitcher who had already achieved some success.
Weiss went on: “Did you notice his record with the White Sox for the last four years? He averaged about one walk every four innings. Any pitcher who can get the ball aver the plate can win for us.”
The Yankees did not win the pennant that year, but Lopat compiled an 18-11 record with a 3.65 ERA. He continued to experiment on the mound, often getting to the ballpark earlier than anyone else so he could work on old deliveries and new ones, refining this pitch, figuring out new wrinkles on that pitch, adding still another delivery to his constantly expanding repertoire.
For his teammates, Lopat was an extra pitching coach. Lopat showed Allie Reynolds how to slow down his delivery and change speeds. He pinpointed a problem for rookie Whitey Ford. Ford was getting racked up, and first baseman Tommy Henrich told him, “You know, that first base coach is calling every pitch you’re throwing.” The next day Lopat and Turner took Ford to the bullpen and had him throw from the stretch, and Lopat immediately spotted the problem: Ford had his glove hand in one position for the fastball and in another when he was going to throw a curve. The problem was quickly solved.

Lopat was known by a number of names -”the Junkman,” the “cute little lefthander.” To Ted Williams, he was “that bleeping Lopat.” Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen called him “Steady Eddie.”

Eddie Lopat a Young boys Mentor--Pt #2 of 3

There were differing views of his pitching motion. Some said he looked like a robot or a wind-up doll in need of some WD-40. Others described his delivery as smooth, easy, stylish. Most used the same word to characterize it: deceptive. Williams, when asked to name the five toughest pitchers he had faced, placed Eddie Lopat at the head of the list.
“The Junkman gives them a little of this and a little of that – but nothing good and very little they will wrap up and bring home”. A frustrated batter complained “Ya could stand up here for a week and not see anything ya want!”
Lopat once told Allie Reynolds, “Take four pitches – the fast ball, the curve, the slider and the screwball. Now throw these at different speeds and you have 12 pitches. Next, throw each of these 12 pitches with a long-armed or short-armed motion, and you have 24 pitches.” He neglected to mention what you would have if you threw them with different arm angles, overhand, three-quarters and sidearm: 72 pitches.
And he kept adding new ones. In 1953 he unveiled the “slip pitch,” a variation on the palm ball taught by White Sox manager Paul Richards. And what was that pitch? “Get a knuckleball grip,” the lefthander explained, “and throw the slider with it.”

113-59 record with the Yankees.
In 1945 I met him and he showed me his new pitch “Slip Pitch”. Changed my hand position for my Change and Curve…worked very very well but, never got the hang of the “Slip Pitch”. One thing I really liked about him was…we were the same type of pitcher…so-so fastball, great control/command, very good “Junk”! I used two arm slots…over the top and side arm, he used six (counting the short/long). He was one of the best Junk Ball pitchers ever…and one of my heroes!
Eddie Lopat didn’t automatically get respect, the way a Bob Feller or Nolan Ryan does. His stuff just wasn’t impressive, even when it was working — which was almost always. Eddie had to earn his respect, every time out, because his pitches did just enough to get batters out, and no more. Perhaps his background as a hitter (his first few years in the minors were as a first-baseman) enabled him to better understand hitter’s weaknesses, but for whatever reason, he was able to consistently find and exploit weaknesses — particularly against the Cleveland Indians.
Eddie “The Junkman” Lopat relished his nickname because he wanted batters to underestimate him. Lopat had never been fast and constantly used self-deprecation to cover his mastery of a team after beating them.

In 1954, the year that Cleveland won a record 111 games, Lopat beat them five times. It got so bad that Cleveland sold rabbit’s feet on the nights that Lopat pitched. Once, after Eddie had won 11 straight against the Tribe, a Cleveland fan ran onto the field and hurled a black cat at Lopat. Eddie caught the frightened cat, cuddled it a bit, handed it to an usher, and went on to beat Cleveland for the 12th time in a row.
The Tribe is a slugging team — it’s as much a part of their identity now as it was then. Free-swinging and powerful. Eddie The Junkman tossed them his Nothing Ball, his assortment of slow curves and slop curves, his wide variety of change-ups, and he allowed the Indians to get themselves out. He merely gave them enough rope. They took care of the hangings.

Eddie LoPat A Young Boys Mentor--Pt#3 of 3

Eddie’s favorite victory against the Indians came when they tried to beat him at his own game. They arrived at 4:00 for an 8:00 game, and were surprised to see the Tribe taking batting practice two hours before the customary time. They had another soft-tossing lefty, and they were practicing the art of merely punching Lopat-like slow curves to the opposite field. The right-handers would knock the soft-curves over the second baseman’s head, lefties over the shortstop. Over and over, they would rap these soft-little knocks, never once taking the type of hearty, from-the-heels full-cut that had led to so many losses.
The problem was that Eddie saw the whole thing. When his catcher, Yogi Berra, arrived at the park, Lopat told him the scoop: No slow-balls today, Yogi. Don’t even call for ‘em. Fastballs and sliders only. And the first time through the lineup, that’s how it was. Lopat acted like some other man, some man gifted with velocity…but he wasn’t gifted with velocity. Lopat’s fastballs and sliders were the sort of pabulum that Cleveland would normally feast on, but these new Indians were geared for the other Eddie Lopat; The Junkman. What they got instead was Eddie The Adequate, and they were crossed up. They didn’t score.
After he’d been though the line-up once, the Indians switched to their normal method, and Eddie returned to his normal “Now-you-see-’em, now-you-don’t routine.” He won, again, by a score of 5-3. It was years before the Indians knew that Lopat had spied on them.
Comments are welcome!
Hat tip to Zita Carno and Kirk Robinson for parts of this post.

Why I can't forgive A-Rod

He cheated Himself and GOD! I am sorry that I sound like a bible thumper but, that is where talent comes from right.
Damn it...He had it all. With the help of the New York media, bloggers and (Sorry, but true) the Click among the team, lead by Joe T, little storys began to appear. None of which had a name behind them in other words made up so as to make him look bad. After all, we can't have someone come in and out shine the great Jeter, something that may have happened if he had been treated as a normal addition to the team. One can't believe the pressure he was under and how much it may have hurt his game over the years unless you have been there. Been there done that! Why they worried about that in the first place is beyond me but, we know that Cashman, Joe T and Jeter didn't want him on the team. I can't believe Jeter said anything but, he never once stood up as he did for Jason, Andy and Posada when they needed support, this attitude didn't help.
Jeter carried a grudge because of an article in SI, not the sign of a Captain to me!
Jeter may (will) make it into the HoF but, the much better player will not, on the first time but, his talent will show he is far and away the best of the best, so he'll be there.

A-Rod, why he is hated!

Part #2

Facts;
1--A-Rod hit Hrs as a 19-24 year old player in Sea. at a avg. of 31 a year, just the start of his better years.
2--As a 25-27 just into his prime years he hit an avg. of 52 HRs per year but...remember, it is Texas!
3--As a free agent, he said he wanted to have the biggest contract ever given to a player! OK, so what? All these FA keep saying "No trade to any team without their ok...fine, ok! Ever notice were they end up? They (Most of them) go where the money is, why can't A-Rod?
4--While in Texas he was asked about Jeter...he told the truth..."If Jeter played anywhere other than New York, he would just be another good SS that hits for high Avg." Something like that, which was a HUGE NO-NO.
5--Was traded to New York, Cashman, Joe T. and Jeter didn't want him AT ALL but, the Boss said otherwise.
6--All of the above, made it clear they didn't want him on the team.
7--Shortly there after, little innuendos, hints, half truths and down right made-up storys started to show-up in the media. Once started, they had a life of their own. A-Rod became hot copy for the media and bloggers...most of whom, never bothered to find out if they were true or not...AFTE ALL he was A-Rod the highest paid player in baseball, great copy and many other players didn't like him because he was much better and higher paid then they were...look it up...it's called JEALOUSY!
8--He was not in the Joe T click, Joe got fired (more or less) because he wouldn't follow orders from his boss...Cashman. Afterwards, Joe T put out a book which really slammed A-Rod with many things that were PROVEN to be UNTRUE later.
9--Not all the players on the Yankees hated A-Rod, those in the click and the ones that were "Click want to be's" did but the others...not so much.
10--Any player that has put up the numbers he has over his career can't be on PEDs all those years and still play as he has. Some will point to his Hip Injury as proof he has used for years...untrue!
His hip problem is the same injury many players have had or have now. PED users have trouble with their lower legs and feet first and soon after they start using (within 5 years mostly)!
11--Andy used and lied about it at first...same as A-Rod! Oh, I forgot, Andy is a nice guy and part of the Core 4.
12--What about all the guys that used Greenies back a few years, or the ones that used Dope, Coke or many other things? Do we wipe their records or put * after their records? Why only A-Rod?

The Yankees have had many players that used big time Drugs, Greenies and many other things to get an edge.

If anyone thinks this will be the end of the band use of drugs, they are crazy!

                                                         -30-