About Chris O'Leary
I never set out to be a pitching and hitting guru.
Hell, I hadn't played organized baseball beyond grade school due
to a shoulder injury sustained due to throwing and pitching
incorrectly. I had also received some really bad advice about
hitting mechanics and had no confidence in my swing or knowledge
about what a good swing (actually) looks like.
Instead, I wanted to be Steve Jobs.
As a result, when my sons started to play baseball, I was just a
dad — who happened to be fascinated by the subjects of innovation and
entrepreneurship — who helped out with my kids' teams but never
intended to make a living, much less a difference, doing it.
When Things Changed
That all changed when my older son showed an interest in
pitching, and quickly turned out to be pretty good.
Not wanting what happened to me to happen to him, I decided to
educate myself about pitching mechanics. As a result, I read
literally every book I could find on the subject.
What was weird was every book contradicted every other book, at
least to a degree. One book would say this was the BEST thing you
could do and another would say it was the WORST thing you could do.
As a result, I decided to dive into the science and find out what
the research actually said. That didn't go any better, but it turned
out to be a life-changing experience.
How Innovation Starts
The thing that started me on the path to this point was paragraph
in a 2002
article in The American Journal of Sports Medicine entitled, "Effect
of Pitch Type, Pitch Count, and Pitching Mechanics on Risk of Elbow
and Shoulder Pain in Youth Baseball Pitchers."
In fact, two mechanical flaws, backward lean in the balance
position and early hand separation, correlated with a decreased
risk of elbow pain. Two other flaws, a long arm swing and arm
ahead of the body at the time of ball release, correlated with a
decreased risk of shoulder pain.
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, read it again.
I can wait.
Did you notice it this time?
If no, and you like puzzles, read it again. And again.
If not, here's the thought that popped into my head the instant I
read that paragraph.
If something decreases
the risk of elbow and shoulder pain, then
how exactly is it a flaw?
That's an important question, but in the interests of innovation,
let's take a moment and discuss how I came to ask it.
THe Innovator's Mindset
If you asked me what two books have had the greatest impact on my
life, next to the Bible, I'd have to say they were Donald Noman's
The Design of Everyday Things and Thomas Kuhn's The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
What I learned from Don Norman's book was this.
It isn't my fault.
Entirely.
When I have trouble using a product or device — even something
as simple as a door — it usually isn't because of a mistake I made.
Instead, it's because of a mistake the designer made. The designer
didn't know or care enough about how people think and didn't taking
that into account.
What I learned from Thomas Kuhn's book — which to be honest is a
brutal, but ultimately rewarding, slog of a book — is that people
can do and say some really dumb things in order to keep from
admitting they are wrong and/or changing a deeply-held belief.
When they are facing an intellectual crisis.
What Crisis Looks Like
And what does this have to do with baseball?
What I immediately recognized when I read that paragraph about
pitching mechanics and injuries...
In fact, two mechanical flaws, backward lean in the balance
position and early hand separation, correlated with a decreased
risk of elbow pain. Two other flaws, a long arm swing and arm
ahead of the body at the time of ball release, correlated with a
decreased risk of shoulder pain.
...was that the pitching mechanics industry was in crisis and
that crisis affected every member of it from top to bottom.
When reading that paragraph, it's all too easy to make excuses
for the authors.
While that statement doesn't make sense, the authors are famous
and well-educated. They must know what they are talking about.
Clearly, they would only label something a flaw if it hurt a
pitcher's velocity or had some other negative impact on their
performance.
What you find out if you read the study is that there is no
mention of whether the "flaws" caused any problems. it just seems
that they deviate from the authors' preconceived notions about what
proper pitching mechanics should be. Maybe that's because they
differ from the conventional wisdom; what everybody knows and
teaches?
I don't know.
What I do know is that paragraphs like the one above reflect a
problem with how the members of an industry are thinking about a
subject.
A problem that creates an opportunity for people who have their
eyes and ears open and are listening for flawed assumptions and what
Stuart Smalley calls, "Stinkin' Thinkin'."
What I'm Working On
What I'm doing at the moment is working on two things.
First, I'm continuing to research pitching mechanics in an effort
to reverse the course of the
pitcher injury and Tommy John surgery epidemic. I have put
together a number of
DVDs, eBooks, and webbooks about pitching mechanics that are
based on my study of pitchers who were and are both
dominant
and durable.
Second, I have put together a number of
DVDs, eBooks, and webbooks about hitting mechanics that are
based on my experience working to fix problems like
Bat Drag with my kids, their friends, and a number of major
league hitters including
Andres Torres.
Finally, I continue to think about the topic of innovation and
have turned what I have learned into two books.
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