The Craft of Pitching

Rating:
Summary: Mysteries of How the Pitcher Fools the Batter Revealed
Review: The good TV announcers use terms such as fastball, knuckleball, curveball, slider, screwball, split-finger fastball, forkball, change-up, off-speed, sinker, hop, two-seam, four-seam, and a host of other terms to describe pitches. How they can discern which type of pitch was thrown is not always obvious to the viewer. I became so interested in the mechanics of the different pitches that I went looking for a book on the subject. I found The Craft of Pitching by Larry Jansen who pitched for the New York Giants from 1947 to 1954. He was a National League All-Star in 1950 and 1951. He pitched in the 1951 World Series. He won more than 122 games, and went 21-5 in 1947 and 23-11 in 1951. He was a pitching coach for the San Francisco Giants from 1961 to 1971. Among his coaching credits are Hall-of-Famers Gaylord Perry and Juan Marichal, each of whom provided a foreword for Jansen's book. Jansen's book, published by Masters Press, shows that he is a grand master of the art of pitching. It will answer all your questions and a few you didn't know enough to even ask!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not a first choice
Review: There are definitely commendable things about this book based on the sheer amount of experience that the author has amassed over the years. Diagrams are plentiful and of high quality. However ideas on pitching mechanics are not state of the art including old fashioned advocacy of pushing off the plate amongst other dinosaurs. Nor is it actually possible for a fastball to 'hop' as it used to thought. There are also things that are uncoventional such as dragging the back foot along the ground to gain better control. Yet there are other aspects of the book that make it definitely worthwhile taking a look at.