How to get good and being more accurate

On Friday, I got a call from Lionel Chattelle, a baseball coach in Germany who coaches the Bonn Capitals. They're one of a dozen professional baseball teams in the country. Later this year, I'll be putting on a 5-day pitching and coaching clinic over there with some of his professional pitchers, some of whom play on the German National Baseball Team. While the details haven't been finalized, I'm looking forward to it.

Coach Chattelle, who himself is a former college pitcher from the US, said he was recently working with a former Twins pitcher, Tim Henkenjohann, at right, who was released from the big league club.

The pitcher is a talented prospect: In the neighborhood of 6-foot-5, 220 pounds. Throws 92 mph. Yet the Twins pitcher was experiencing control problems, and sent back to Germany to work on it.

Coach Chattelle's fix? He told him to think about seeing the target and hitting the target -- and nothing else. Not mechanics, not girlfriends, not what's for dinner, not the latest Superman Returns movie.

The pitcher's problem, which is quite common amongst pitchers, is that he was thinking about everything else but the task at hand: the next pitch. He was trying to fix his mechanics in between pitches. He was talking to himself, but it wasn't positive or progressive.

Are Coach Chattrelle's comments a simple set of commands? You bet. But it worked. Coach said his pitcher is throwing more strikes. And they're making some mechanical changes in practice that's helping the cause, too.

My point is this: when you're in practice, work on mechanics. That's the perfect time and place to do that. When you're in the game, work on the next pitch. (Thanks for the tip, Coach!)