Where good pitching control comes from

I've been asked to work with a 13-year-old baseball pitcher for a WGBH-Boston TV program. We're taping tomorrow, and it'll air on PBS sometime in August 2007.

One of the areas I'll be talking about on the program is how baseball pitchers, particularly young kids, can develop control: Work on your pitching mechanics.

Throwing bullpens, throwing from flat ground, aiming to hit your throwing partner's chest are all great. But none will enable you to throw strikes more consistently if you have poor mechanics. And more times than not, throwing with poor mechanics only makes it harder to fix them.

So why not start working on your pitching mechanics today? You can never work on them enough. Even the pros, like the St. Louis Cardinals' Mark Mulder, constantly work on their pitching mechanics. That's why they have great control.