Should we write a book?

Shorty(wife) and I are approaching, if we have not already passed the point in our relationship where we may or may not be in the most long-lasting long distance relationship ever.

We have been a couple for almost 8 years, and married for almost 2... having said that, we have been apart for more than 1/2 of our relationship. This automatically puts huge speed bumps in a relationship, and marriage.

We have flown in to see one another maybe.... 30 times by now, we spend a month or two together, then the same or more time apart. This is caused mainly because I play baseball, and never know where I'll be playing from one day to another (we found out the hard way last year as Shorty drove 20 hours to be with me for a month until I got moved, where she drove 25 hours to be there with me, until I got moved back(3weeks later... then we said screw this). She is from the Midwest (USA), I and I am from Vancouver, Canada, and still call this home. Shorty is currently in New Mexico following what she loves, as am I. It's not easy, it never is, never was, but hopefully will be once we're together for good. We have made it this far, so I am really thinking, we must have figured something out right? I never wanted to have a long distance relationship, that's the exact reason I broke up with my last girlfriend, I didn't want to try to make it work. But low and behold, Shorty and I have found our way (not a way, our way). We don't ever talk about it or realize how far we've come as a couple, as individuals, as relationship pioneers. We have broken down walls that's probably 99% of couple would have failed at, we have done so much, and still have our lives to accomplish.

The title of this post is a joke, but, could almost be true. If we had the right author and editors around us, we could probably have a bestseller. We have so many stories, so many highs and lows. From living in Europe for 3 years, playing in 2 universities together, accents, crazy nights, random experiences, friends and acquaintances coming and going... oh man, book material!

We have had so much stuff to go through, and are still so unsure about our future, and how it will play out, because so far nothing has gone according to plan. Present times suck (because, yes, we are apart right now) but we know that deep down the other cares so much for us that no matter what, it will be okay, and when WE believe, things work out.

Picture #1 = about 3 minutes after I threw my first no-hitter.

Picture #2 = Shorty and I in Stanley park, Vancouver, BC.

Picture #3 = Us skating ... good times.

Response

Asonas wrote =

"i have one question too. how do you think - What MPH is the lower border an athletics person should be able to throw without any special talent for throwing a ball? i'm teaching myself and other guys pitching here in Latvia where we have no coaches. i'm the fastest thrower on the team and last year I topped out at 78 MPH (my teammates 65-74MPH). i think I can improve this year, and get at least over 80 just by improwing my mechanics. but what should I expect from other who maybe are athletic but not talented in throwing? i wonder how fast jonny damon is throwing - seems to not have a lot of talent for throwing :)

I have taken wayyyy to long to write back to my friends in Latvia, but here it is. First off, thank you for reading my blog, it's good to see it is read all over the world (I even had a comment in Chinese that I couldn't post last week because it was, well, in Chinese). A couple things to let you know about Asonas, the speed of a pitch is only 1/3 of the pitching, the other 2/3 are made up of location (where you pitch it) and movement on the baseball (depending on grips and arm angles). Also, any American pitching coach wouldn't like you referring to pitching as throwing, because pitching means something much different than throwing. Pitching= art. Throwing= throwing something. Not sure if you and your friends are pitchers, but for those who aren't they can still call it throwing :)

To answer your first question, it's actually a very tough question which could have many different answers. But, the average speed of a grown man who doesn't have any pitching coaching in their life I would say 65-75 is decent. Every MPH above that is harder and harder to achieve, but the Internet is a wonderful tool, and there are many ways to read about proper pitching mechanics. For others I would say maybe only 5 MPH less on average, so 60-70MPH would be the average for a grown man (20+).

I never threw hard growing up. I was a guy who mastered his location before figuring out how to throw hard. I got a college scholarship throwing 80-82 MPH, but being able to throw pitches where I wanted to. Then I figured my body out when I was playing in Belgium at age 22, and figured out how to throw 90MPH. So, here's a couple pitching tips to maybe accelerate your fastballs a couple MPH.

-When your throwing hand splits from your glove (which should happen at the exact same time as your knee drops from your leg kick) make sure it stays in an even line behind your body, if you let it get to far behind you, you will lose power, and the batter may have a chance to see what you're throwing.

-Extend! When you release the ball, see how close you can release it to your target. Pretend that you are trying to throw the ball through the glove, not just to it.

-Stand tall. Pretend there is a string going from your butt through your spine, and out through the top of your head, attached to something in the sky, or on the roof.

-Make sure your elbows are up. When your stride foot lands, you should be at the power position. Both elbows at shoulder height, front one flat and.... just check out the picture I found on google.

Johnny Damon has maybe the worst arm of any major leaguer, that's why he's a left fielder... if he wasn't fast he would be a DH, or out of baseball, but speed is so important at that level.

I wish you all the best, and I hope to hear good news that you have raised above 80 MPH, and your friends are approaching 78 MPH!!

Latest session

Yea, it's sideways, I know... my computer wouldn't download the longer upright side angle version... Sorry. That's me last week getting some work in.

Random notes

->It's almost Christmas, holy crap.

->Shorty (wife) has recently joined me here in White Rock, Canada for the holidays, and is now a Canadian permanent resident too! I know, this is excellent news.

->We won't have a white Christmas like last year, but I'm not going to complain about a sunny one when it rains 95% of the time during winters here in Canada's hotspot.

->I've lost 25 pounds in about 65 days with my off-season workouts. I'm at a good weight now, I just need to continue to drop the body fat %.

->Shorty and I are joining 10 of our friends at a cabin on Sheridan Lake in the interior of BC for 5 days over new years for snowmobiling, ice hockey (on our own man-made rink), lots of games, cheers' and good times to be had by all. Pumped.

->I've been molding youths pitching mechanics for the past couple months, enjoying it, and even getting paid for it here.

->That's about it for now... looking forward to a couple weeks of family, friends, and good times.

One month

Over a month ago, I posted my last blog. I know. Sad.

Anyways, back at it today.

In the past 43 days since I've been home I have=

Ran stairs 16 times
Long tossed 14 times
played catch / flat ground bullpen 11 times
Sprinted 10 times
New "White Rock Run" 6 times

All of that has me down 15.5 pounds, so I guess an average of about a 1/3 of a pound a day loss. That's not the most important thing though. I feel a lot more energy, and my body (mostly my legs) have gotten a lot stronger, and I can tell already. I am happy to be in this shape at this point in my winter workout. 43 days down and about 70 left until I head back down south for spring training. This will the most important month of baseball in my life. I am going to battle everyday for over a month to claim a spot on a minor league team with the Toronto Blue Jays. Last year, they started me right away in double A... This year, assuming the Jays still have plans to keep me around, I will have to earn a spot in spring training. This is what I am getting ready for.

Other things I've been keeping busy with=

Seeing many close friends of whom I don't get to see for 9 months out of the year.
Pitching lessons part time (21 hours a week)
Not blogging
Hanging out and helping the folks around the house
Watching hockey
Walking the dogs / Hanging out with the sister

Well, time for December, hope you are all ready. It's about to get cold here in Vancouver for a while. To me, this is bitter sweet, it'll be dry so working out is possible, but it'll be cold, so I better get sweating fast!

Until next time.

Interesting Question

Asonas, Good question, I will answer that when I get some time again behind the computer. Question is published in the comment section a couple posts down.

The Slider

I've been asked recently about my slider, how I throw it, how I locate it, and basically how do I make it work. I want to get one thing straight first though, the slider shouldn't be taught to any children below the age of 12-13. The did studies on it and have proved that the younger a kid tries throwing curve balls and sliders, the higher the possibility of them hurting their arm with it, or later on in their career. So, no 9 year olds are allowed to throw sliders yet... that's my own personal blog rule I just made up, so... don't break the rules!

The most important thing about sliders that I have figured just in the past 2 years is this. When you bring the ball up behind your body, you need to make sure that the arm does not cross behind your body. If it does, the arm won't be up to the power position on time and you will have a loopy Frisbee slider. The grip is also a key, you want to make sure that the last finger to touch the ball (in the sliders case it will be the index finger) is on a seam to make sure you get that last release with the proper spin. The slider is the breaking pitch that is thrown the most like a fastball. When I'm doing clinics these days, and teaching breaking pitches (sliders, curve balls) I remind the pitchers to think 'fastball' until the very end right when you are leaving the power position, then slider, which is when you are to have fastball arm speed when you release the breaking pitch. These are all mechanics that require precise timing, which is brought on by doing the action over and over and over, lots of repetitions.

All in all, the slider can be a go to pitch, a strike out pitch, a setup pitch. It all depends on how it moves, and once you figure that out, then how you move it.

Back in the Rock

Well I'm back.

I'm settled in somewhat back at home here in White Rock, BC. I arrived Saturday, to being picked up by my wonderful sister, who ended up taking me back to White Rock so that we could hang out some. So, that we did. Enjoyed meeting a new family member, lil' Chip. He's an awesome dog of whom I hope to share many pictures and videos of once I figure out how to load stuff on a MAC, or get the wireless going.

Started my workouts 3 days ago. After taking 2 complete weeks off while in New Mexico while enjoying my time with my wonderful wife, I have just started my winter training, It will last until spring training begins in March. So killing my legs the first day were inevitable; I took it easy on the legs though, just a few laps of a soccer field. Got the arm going twice already, it feels good and after 80 throws its feeling pretty good on its day off today.

The house is pretty quiet with me being the only soul within it. I'm house sitting right now for my folks until they get back from Europe where they are having the time of their lives.

Well not much to blog about recently, anyone got any Q's?

Aliens everywhere...

Shorty and I drove from Tulsa to Vancouver last year at about this time of year. Before we left we mapped out our trip, we marked down the cities, and sights we really wanted to see that were along our route. We were able to stop by every place we planned on except for one. That was Roswell, New Mexico. It was about 4 hours out of the way, not counting how long we would be there checking stuff out. For those of you who don't know, Roswell is world renowned for being the city where the most alien activity has been reported. From area 51 (a government restricted area) to all of the sightings and claimed alien abductions, Roswell is the extra terrestrial hot spot of North America.

So Shorty and I stopped on the way back from El Paso to Portales, we stayed the night in a little cheap-ass Days Inn so that we didn't have to make the 2 hour drive home that night, then back out the next morning. We awoke around 9, just in time to take advantage of the hotels little breakfast, and then head across the road to Starbucks for a little wake up juice. Around 11 we proceeded to head down to the "Alien strip", from the 1st to the 5th blocks of Main street in Roswell and checked out the situation. It was cheesy, and pretty much what we expected. A bunch of souvenir shops and little cafes, and the UFO museum. We paid our $5 each, and took the tour of the museum, they have all kinds of articles, pictures, here say, stories and movies. It was, well, interesting to say the least, not saying it swayed me to believe that they landed here, but gives you something to think about that's for sure.

We were glad after that we didn't go waaaay out of our way last year just to do this little trip, but we are glad we can check Roswell off of our list of places to visit!

2009 MLB playoffs

Well the division series are over, and the league championship series are about to begin. So far, every team that I was even remotely rooting for has fallen. Boooo... I've either watched, or listened on XM radio to all the games. They have been excellent playoffs so far, with some awesome games. Here's my take and a look back at the division series.

Yankees vs. Twins = I was rooting for the Twins because I tend to go for the underdogs, and Bert Blyleven (my pitching coach with NL) is their announcer. It was rough, the Twins squeaked in after beating Detroit in game 163, then just like had happened in every single game all season against the Yanks, they were ahead at some point in each game, and lost every game. It was so tough for them to get runs, and the yanks would come back every time so easily. Yanks look strong.

Red Sox vs. Angels = Red Sox were dead in this years playoffs, just seemed to have no energy in their dugout. Not to take anything away from the Angels pitchers, who did a hell of a job. Their always solid closer Jon Papelbon had a horrific outing in their last game also which didn't help. The Sox should definitely have had game 3 being up 6-1 at one point, but the pen blew it, just proving further that they didn't deserve it this season.

Rockies vs. Phillies = The only series to go more than the minimum 3 games, the Rockies put up a solid fight against the defending world champs, blowing the last 2 games in the 9th inning because their always reliable closer Huston Street had a very rough series. Tough time to be cold for a closer, but it happens, and unfortunately it cost the Rockies. I wrote a blog a few back about Colorado's game 3 starter.

Dodgers vs. Cardinals = Another sweep, some more great games. Down to their last strike in game 2 and down 2-1 the dropped fly ball by Cards left fielder proved very costly as the Dodgers rallied for the 3-2 walk off win, putting them up 2 game to none. That was the turning point, and the Cards couldn't come back in game 3 sending the Dodgers onto the NLCS.

Previews of the ALCS & NLCS...

Yankees vs. Angels = If the Angels pitching can continue it's dominance, it may have a chance to silence the all star lineup that the Yanks boast. Arod has quickly shaken off his reputation as a choke artist in the playoffs by hitting 2 pivotal bombs and knocking in 6 in the ALDS, if he stays hot, and Jeter and Damon get on base once in a while for him, they will be dangerous.

Dodgers vs. Phillies = The Phillies are coming into this series very hot. After some amazing games against the Rockies, and their whole lineup being fairly hot, their closer Lidge throwing well they are dangerous. I think the Dodgers need to play near perfect baseball, Manny needs to be Manny to be able to knock off the defending champions.