August 31, 2000

I remember asking my math teacher Mr. Lake everyday "Why do you have to learn this?" I was in second grade and thought I knew everything. I didn't need algebra or word problems. He explained that I would be using this later. So later in ninth grade, when the board was full of letters and not numbers I asked again "Why do we need this stuff?" The teacher told me again that we would need this as a foundation for stuff we are going to learn later.

In college, again I wondered what reason I needed differential calculus. As a senior very interested in economics, I was happy to take a class called quantitative economics. This was the one class that would prove all the theorems I wanted to learn as an economics major. There was one problem though, the tools I needed to understand the differential calculus in the class weren't there, I hadn't developed them. So I struggled through the class and never got much out of it because I wasn't equipped for a high level of comprehension.

As different as intellectuals and athletes claim to be, excelling in any discipline whether it is Art history, economics, or pitching requires the exact sort of tools acquisition. Jack Price and I argued for many hours at parties with the so-called intellectuals. I explained that levels in the minor leagues are like levels in school, the better the mastery of tools the easier and more fun the levels become.

Anyone who has ever struggled with a word problem can also understand the frustration of a pitcher who is not having success. Perhaps even more frustrating is getting help from a person who solves the problem easily and then realizing you could have easily done the problem yourself if you knew what aspects to focus on more directly. The same frustration is present when a pitcher can't get guys out and then watches another pitcher carve them up. If only someone would explain how they did that.

This however is what makes athletic movement up the ladder much more difficult than academic achievement upwards. For the most part, causation by association leads to improper feedback on a performance and therefore leads to incorrect decisions on what to change. A math problem, for example, has one ending answer you either get it right or you get it wrong. English classes rely on a certain level of BS (technical term for English majors) and if you do it well enough then you can get it right.

Pitching brings with it a myriad of possibilities of ending answers and complications that would allow the phenomenon of causation by association and incorrect feedback to creep into the equation. For example, 1. Will Rosellini is a Diamondback. 2. Will Rosellini is good looking. 3. Therefore it would follow that all Diamondbacks are good looking, which is obviously not true. This is causation by association. So in evaluating performances many times conclusions are drawn that are incorrect

There are thousands of conclusions drawn like this in baseball and in pitching. Perhaps the biggest misnomer is that a guy's fastball is God-given and a person either has it or he doesn't. I firmly believe that to some extent having a healthy, strong body is God-given and thank God I have been blessed with one, but in comparing my body with other high school, college, or pro athletes the differences aren't that great. Guys that throw hard all maintain certain mechanical truisms throughout their delivery. If you really look at pictures of guys that throw hard, they all position their bodies at specific points in different parts of their delivery. And the guys who are able to throw incredibly accurately also have definite and certain points in their delivery that are easily identifiable. So you aren't born with a great fastball or born with great control. Some guys start off positioning their body correctly and always have the great stuff and great control and other guys have to learn it. That is why hard work is important for a pitcher, but so is smart work. Every pitcher needs a plan to get his stuff and his control where he wants it to be.

Pitching is not only a physical pattern, but a mental effort as well. Like I have said before, every player in the minor leagues has the physical tools to play in the big leagues but what separates us, minor leaguers from the big leaguers is the mental side. I would think however that big leaguers have found methods to deal with this problem of incorrect feedback. They have eliminated all of the wrong patterns and decisions they make and are able to fully concentrate only on the most important and most correct aspects of the physical aspects of mechanics and mental aspects of pitching.

So, by giving full attention to the correct path of thought big leaguers play the game at a higher level. Much like the person helping you with a math problem isn't necessarily smarter than you, rather he simply knows which variable and which tricks to use to get the right answer. When I am retired, any two weeks in the minor leagues will be just as important to me as two weeks in the big leagues. The process itself is just as important as the destination. But let's be honest I got paid $164 for these last two weeks in the minor leagues, it would be easier to look on the good old days in the minor leagues with a $10 million contract in the big leagues.

Thanks again for all the support and responses I am doing my best to respond to all of them.

Will

You can contact Will Rosellini at Rumi54@aol.com.