Latest / From the Coach's Mouth / Episode 57: Sarah Pauly

Transcript

Episode 57: Sarah Pauly · From the Coach's Mouth

• 0:00
  This is so controversial, I'm sure I I don't know if it's
• 0:03
  because I'm old school. I like things the way that they
• 0:07
  were, you know, when I played, I'm not a big fan of the
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  leaping. I do not teach the leaping.
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  I do not recommend the leaping. And in my lessons, I don't
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  encourage it at the. Field in your car or on the
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  couch? From the coach's mouth.
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  Welcome to the From the Coach's Mouth podcast with your hosts
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  Jay Bolden and Ken Krause. Hello everyone, and welcome to
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  the From the Coach's Mouth podcast.
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  This is Ken Kraus. Here is always with the debonair
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  man about town, Mr. Jay Bolden. Jay, how you doing this morning?
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  I'm doing good, Ken, thanks for all the wonderful comments you
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  give me. One day you're going to have to
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  let me do the intro. So I just sit here and
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  compliment you. But I, I do appreciate all the,
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  all the amazing compliments, man.
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  I just if I can only get my wife to say those things to me,
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  buddy. Well, she pays me to do it so
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  she doesn't have to. She wants to keep you humble.
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  That's amazing. So I have to thank her tonight
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  when I get home. Yep.
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  Yeah. So today's big day for me.
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  I think when I'm done here, I'm going to go get my hair cut.
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  Something that you know, you remember what those are, right?
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  You used to get those. Yeah.
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  Now I just kind of do it myself, man.
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  It's, it's, you know, I always say bald is beautiful, and this
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  is the best haircut I've ever had.
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  So it's, you know, it's fun. Yeah, well, you've got a good
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  head shape for it, so that helps.
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  You know, if I ever went bald, I'd really be in trouble.
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  People would say, what's wrong with that guy?
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  Yeah, yeah. The peanut head that I have is
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  just wonderful, although it doesn't make it doesn't make a
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  good thing when you're trying to buy hats, let me tell you.
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  It's kind of slide off. No, I was trying to get him to
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  fit with this big old watermelon head of mine.
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  So yeah, it's a, you know, it's a, it's definitely.
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  But I, I do love my haircut. I will, I will not.
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  I will not deny that I do love it.
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  Yeah, well, easy maintenance in the morning.
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  Absolutely. Hey, I wanted to run something
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  by you. This is something I, I keep
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  seeing it, you know, I see it online and I also, you know,
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  hear it from some of the parents of my own students and stuff.
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  And that's coaches throwing pitchers into a game without any
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  warm up, you know, so they've got a problem, you know, that
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  the starting pitcher runs into trouble.
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  The coach had planned on pitching her all 7 innings.
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  All of a sudden she's in trouble.
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  And now you're going to take your number 2 pitcher who's
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  playing first base or right field or shortstop or wherever
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  it is and they're going to yank her and throw her in there.
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  That I don't know about you, but that just drives me crazy.
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  Well, honestly, it's an epidemic, especially at the
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  travel ball level, right? Like they're just, hey, let's
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  just pop her in there. She should be super loose
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  because she warmed up, you know, two hours ago or, or 50 minutes
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  ago before the game started. So she should be great.
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  I mean, have a plan for that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
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  And you know, I mean, and then they wonder why they come in and
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  they struggle for the first 3 batters.
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  It's like, well, what do you, what did you want them to do
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  there? There's no looseness in there.
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  There's no, you know, getting warm or, or any of those things.
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  It's just plopping a kid into a into a position.
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  And those girls that can handle that are are, you know, props to
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  props to them. But I mean, have a plan if you
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  know that you're going to have to bring that kid in it when
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  your team comes up to bat. She should be in the bullpen
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  warming up at Saint Xavier, Ken, even, you know, we tell everyone
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  who's in relief and who's third, but they are they're warming up
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  every other inning just in case, just in case, right.
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  And so if you have a player that's on the field and you're
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  coming off and they and they're going to hit and she's not, you
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  know, she's not in the order at that time, get her in the
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  bullpen and get her some case. It's not going to hurt the kid,
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  right? So just have a plan that's
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  that's more about planning. But I agree with you.
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  You cannot just throw a kid in there that like that.
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  Yeah, You know, I don't care how good she is, she's not going to
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  be successful. And then she's going to feel bad
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  about herself, that she's going to feel like she let the team
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  down. I've heard coaches get mad at
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  pitchers when they do that. They throw them in there,
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  they're not performing well, and they can't figure out what the
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  problem is. Well, coach problems, you got a
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  plan. Yeah.
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  Have a plan, have a plan. Yeah.
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  And I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more, you know, and we
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  have a guest today, I think that can maybe elaborate a little bit
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  on that too, Ken. So again, I agree with you.
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  Have a plan. Get the kid out of there, let
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  her warm up with one when the team is batting or have a plan
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  to to to make that happen at some point.
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  But yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
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  But do you want to, do you want to give some information about
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  this guest that we, you and I could Babble on that subject,
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  But that'll have to be a whole nother episode for you and I.
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  But we could Babble forever. But let's we have such an
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  amazing guest that why don't you give some information about this
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  awesome guest we have. Yeah, I definitely want to bring
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  around to talk about that and a whole lot of other stuff.
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  So we're really excited to have this guest with us here today
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  because she is not only one of the most accomplished fast pitch
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  pitchers and now pitching coaches to ever put on the
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  cleats, she's also a personal friend of both Jay and I.
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  While many people think of her as an Arizona girl because
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  that's where she first started garnering national attention,
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  she was actually born in Menominee, Wisconsin.
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  After being a standout and travel ball and high school, she
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  was recruited to play collegiately at Texas A&M Corpus
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  Christi, where she still holds many pitching records.
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  She's a Big South Conference leader in career strikeouts, ERA
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  shutouts, WHIP, strikeout ratio, no hitters, and perfect games, a
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  feat she accomplished in just three seasons.
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  She is one of only 5 NCAA pitchers to win 100 games,
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  strikeout 1000 batters, maintain a sub 1 ERA and average double
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  digit strikeouts for her entire career.
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  Our guest then went on to join the National Pro Fast Pitch
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  League where she stepped up her game even more.
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  In a rookie season of 2006, she was named Pitcher of the Year.
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  The eight time All Pro will forever hold the records for
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  most innings pitched, games played, and games started in her
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  eleven seasons. She was also the first pitcher
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  to reach 100 career wins after playing for and winning
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  championships with the Washington Glory and U Triple SA
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  Pride, as well as playing for the Akron Racers and Stratford
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  Breakouts. In 2011, her playing career
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  expanded even further when she signed a contract to play
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  professionally in the Japan Women's Fast Pitch Pro League,
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  considered by most people to be the top professional fast pitch
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  league for women in the world. She played for the Honda Motor
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  Company and her international adventures then continued with a
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  stint in the Italian Pro League, where she again won a league
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  championship. During her time as a pro, she
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  also managed to squeeze in a coaching career.
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  In 2007, she joined the staff at Spartansburg Methodist College
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  as a pitching coach, then moved on to the College of Charleston
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  in the same role before returning to her alma mater in
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  Corpus Christi, where she spent three years as their pitching
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  coach. And all of that is just
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  scratching the surface of her accomplishments.
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  Today. She is a top private instructor
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  in the Austin, TX area under the Poly Girl Fast Pitch High
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  Performance Pitching banner, which she shares with her
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  father, legendary pitching coach Rick Polly.
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  Honestly, there is no one better to learn from.
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  Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm From the Coach's
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  Mouth podcast. Welcome to the amazing Sarah
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  Polly. Welcome.
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  Coach Sarah, how are you? Hey, Ken.
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  Hey, Jay. How are you guys doing?
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  Good doing awesome. I just.
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  Learned AI, learned a lesson today.
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  I did not rehearse that beforehand.
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  The intro, I just kind of read it cold, haven't seen it in a
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  few days, and actually read it better than some of the ones
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  I've been practicing. So so there you go.
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  So you don't need practice, you just got to go in cold and run
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  through it. Yeah, you got to, you got to own
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  it Like you've been here. You've been here before, right?
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  You've said it, said it a million times before.
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  Exactly. Yeah.
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  So yeah, before we get started into the regular questions we
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  have for you, you know the dancer Jay and I were doing
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  ahead of time, what do you think about that?
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  What have you seen with coaches putting pitchers in cold and did
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  you ever experience that? No, I never experienced that
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  because as Jay was saying, the coaches need to have a plan.
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  We always had a plan our in travel ball in college, even in
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  the pros. If the coach didn't have a plan,
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  then the players already knew. And I understand the at the
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  young, for the younger generation, they don't know.
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  They don't know when they're supposed to go warm up.
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  If something is currently going on with the starting pitcher.
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  They don't know how to recognize, you know, if there's
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  two walks and a hit or two really big things occur on the
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  field. Hey, I need to go take myself to
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  the bullpen and warm up. There needs to be somebody who's
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  is delegated to tell the younger generation, hey, this is what
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  you're looking for. Better safe than sorry.
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  Go grab a teammate, go off to the side, go warm up.
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  You might go in and you might not, but either way you're ready
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  to go, right? You know when when you get
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  older, you kind of already can sense what's what's happening on
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  the field and you can go get yourself warm.
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  But when the coaches put the players in spur of the moment
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  and expect them to perform, it just isn't going to happen. 5050
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  chance maybe it does happen. The other fifty chance you can't
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  be mad at the kid because it. Was.
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  You know, it was you who didn't have a plan or came up with a
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  plan right at the last minute and didn't necessarily
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  communicate that with the girl. Yeah, it's kind of that old
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  saying, right? That your lack of planning does
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  not constitute my emergency. Yeah, exactly.
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  And it it seems, though, as though it is maybe an oh, crap
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  moment, you know, in the coach's head, like, oh, crap, we got a,
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  we got to put a new pitcher in thinking in her head, his or her
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  head. I don't have anybody warm.
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  Well, so and so is really good. We can just throw her in there.
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  When in actuality, that's just not how pitchers work.
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  Yeah. You know you you need more time.
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  Yeah. I mean, what was the fastest
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  that you felt you were able to warm up?
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  If you absolutely had to get in there, how long would you have
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  needed to take? Yeah, so growing up in Arizona,
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  we had to kind of train ourselves to get warm as quickly
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  as possible. This was a travel ball.
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  This was high school ball, and we already had the compliments
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  of the heat. So the joke, the ongoing joke
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  actually, between my dad and I was a 7 minute warm up and I
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  could get everything I needed to get done accomplished in 7
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  minutes. And so I just, maybe I threw a
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  little bit before the game that wasn't the full warm up, but
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  just to make sure that I was prepared enough to go into the
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  game and still have my 5 pitches to warm up.
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  I could be ready to go in 7 minutes.
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  That's great. Yeah.
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  It's funny because I I will usually tell my girls you should
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  be able or I want you to be able to warm up in 10 minutes because
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  you're in high school ball and you're on the bus.
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  The bus driver gets lost, you're late.
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  You finally get there to the field.
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  The umpire comes up to your coach and says, coach, you got
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  10 minutes to get your girls on the field and we're going to go.
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  So if you can't, if you can't, you know that doesn't mean you
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  always have to take 10 minutes. If you need more time and you
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  have more time, go ahead, but if you don't get 10 minutes that
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  you can at least be go out of the field and be competent.
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  Yeah. Well, in that, in that
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  situation, I would say right when you get to the field, the
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  pitcher and the catcher need to go immediately.
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  Like they skip out on, they do, they do their own little jog
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  back and forth in the bullpen and they skip out on the team
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  stuff and go to the bullpen and get yourself warm because that
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  will, that will give you more than the 10 minutes allowed per
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  SE before you're actually going to play that.
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  That should be the number one priority.
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  Get yourself to the bullpen and start warming up.
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  Yep, absolutely. I used to when when I coached
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  travel, you know, I'm coaching my daughter now.
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  This is prior though. When I coached travel, we used
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  to tell our pitchers and catchers they had to come 30
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  minutes early, like be there 30 minutes early before everybody
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  else. And we would as coaches would be
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  there too, right? And we would just tell them,
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  hey, you have this extra 30 minutes to do what you need to
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  do to get loose. That way if you do want to do
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  some hitting before with the team, you're already ready to
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  go. And then we'll throw a little
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  bit right before the game starts just to make everything's locked
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  down. But again, that's just all about
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  having a plan and having, you know, plan A.
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  If plan A doesn't go as planned, you got to have you got to have
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  Plan B. So I think that's important that
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  you you plan. This is what we're going to go
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  with. But if she gets in trouble,
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  you're up. So I need you to be loose during
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  this innings. So, yeah, I couldn't agree with
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  you more, Sarah. It's the seven minute thing is
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  awesome. I mean, that would be, and we've
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  had to do that before because like Ken said, the bus is late
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  or travel ball. They're moving times up now
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  because they want to get get people in earlier.
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  So you've got to yeah, you got to be flexible with that too
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  though. So yeah, great points.
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  Well, let's get started with the stuff we actually planned now
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  that we threw a curveball at you.
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  But you're used to that. You were a pro.
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  All righty. So first of all, Jay and I are
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  both Chicago area guys. So I have to ask you, how long
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  did you live in Wisconsin and was it long enough to even
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  remember anything about it? Yeah, born in Wisconsin.
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  We actually moved when I was 7. I remember it was cold and
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  looking back now I am so thankful that we moved to
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  Arizona because I do not do cold weather.
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  I don't really remember much about it, just what I remember
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  is what I see in photos or old videos.
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  And you remember vaguely hearing all the time, right?
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  No, I don't even remember that. So, Sarah.
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  My my Wisconsin students. Yeah, yeah.
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  So, Sarah, I want to. We asked us about everybody.
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  How did you get started in fast pit softball?
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  Where did it all begin for Sarah Paulie?
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  With my dad, I've been, I've been listening to the your
• 15:36
  guys's other podcasts and most of them have said with their
• 15:40
  father. Yeah, mine started with my dad.
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  He vaguely remember this, but we had moved to Arizona and yeah,
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  he had a, he had an old glove and a ball, obviously.
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  And he just, you know, was like, hey, let's go in the backyard
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  and throw. And I didn't know what that
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  meant, but we just, we just started throwing the ball back
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  and forth and it was not pretty at all.
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  Mind you, I, I, I didn't just didn't understand.
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  I just did not understand why he wanted to go in the backyard and
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  throw. So you weren't, you weren't like
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  your friend Kelly Montalvo when she was on.
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  She said that, you know, her dad used to show her off because she
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  was five years old and they were playing catch and all that.
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  That wasn't you. No, no, no, no.
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  I probably didn't get showing off until maybe I was about 1615
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  or 16 maybe. Yeah, my dad was probably like,
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  oh, God, I I cannot say that this kid has it until she can
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  actually, like, throw the pitch over the plate because there
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  were many times when we were practicing in the backyard that
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  he was probably thinking, what have I gotten myself into?
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  That's great. So Sarah, Sarah, did you, did
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  you happen to play any other sports growing up, like
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  basketball, volleyball? I mean, you're very tall.
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  Were you tall at that age too? And I mean, I'm sure if you were
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  the high school coaches were like, let's get this girl
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  playing some hoops. Yeah, No, I I never played
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  basketball. I never played volleyball.
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  The coaches in high school were trying to get me to play.
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  My freshman year in high school, I did try out for the volleyball
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  team. I did not want to do that.
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  There must have been something like the volleyball coach
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  basically begged me to try to to attend their summer camp.
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  This was right at the end of the summer.
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  I didn't want to do that. I bought Volleyball was so
• 18:07
  foreign. Honestly, I I had probably had
• 18:10
  never watched a volleyball game, so I didn't even know the rules.
• 18:14
  I didn't know what was going on. But I attended their camp and
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  right after the camp they had the tryout and the coaches just
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  could not understand how I was telling them I play softball
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  year round. I'm never going to have time to
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  play volleyball. And we go on with the try out.
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  Mind you, like I said, I don't know what's going on.
• 18:44
  I'm just someone saying, oh, put your arms out like this.
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  Hit the ball with the forearm, you know, the inside part of
• 18:51
  your arm. And no, I'm just.
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  Yeah, I'm just picturing you kind of like wandering around
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  the court aimlessly. I, I did not know what was going
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  on, put it that way. I did not feel comfortable out
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  there. I just did it because they were
• 19:07
  like please, please try out. We could, we love your height.
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  You could be really good. You could be a really good
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  volleyball player. We have the try out and after, I
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  don't know, three or four days, I come, I come to the car after
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  we found out who made the team and my mom is there to pick me
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  up and I'm crying and she's like, she's like, oh baby, you
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  know, sorry you didn't, you didn't make the team.
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  And I was like, no, I did make the team and I was crying
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  because I made the team. I was, I Needless to say, the
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  way that I felt was I made the team over girls who had been
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  playing their whole life up until that point.
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  How did I make the team? I don't know anything about
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  volleyball. How did I make the team over
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  girls who had been playing and practicing and wanting to make
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  this team? How did I make it?
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  Basically, I made it because I was tall and I hated that.
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  And I told my I told my mom I I was like.
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  I'm not going to play on this team.
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  I'm going to tell them thanks but no thanks because I can't
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  play on a team. I can't play volleyball because
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  I play softball year round. There is no time for me to
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  practice volleyball when I have got to be playing softball.
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  That's my story. Never again.
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  Nobody ever asked me ever again. Well, yeah, it sounds like that
• 20:50
  was probably the right decision then.
• 20:53
  I I think it it worked out for you definitely.
• 20:56
  It did. You're right.
• 20:57
  All right, you kind of hinted at this a little bit earlier, but I
• 21:01
  wanted to ask you specifically. So when you were playing
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  softball, were you always Sarah Paulie superstar, or at what
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  age, if it wasn't right away, what age did you really start
• 21:12
  coming together, where you started going?
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  Yeah, I'm pretty good at this. Going back to the practices in
• 21:19
  the backyard with my dad, I might be biased, but he's a
• 21:23
  pretty great guy. I say that because I say that
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  because I was really bad when I started, but we practiced a lot
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  in the backyard. You know, I would throw a ball
• 21:38
  over his head, over his head and over the fence of the other
• 21:43
  neighbor's yard. And he lied to me and told me
• 21:48
  that that was the best rise ball he had ever seen.
• 21:52
  And. That's a good dad.
• 21:55
  It is. Same thing would happen when I
• 21:58
  would throw a ball in the ground.
• 22:00
  I shoot. I have a funny story.
• 22:03
  One of the times we were out there throwing and our little
• 22:08
  dog ran across the grass the the backyard grass while I was
• 22:15
  throwing and I, I didn't hit the dog, but I came pretty close to
• 22:20
  hitting the dog. And my dad told me that was the
• 22:23
  best drop ball he had ever seen. And I didn't know any better.
• 22:28
  I believed him. I believed him when he said it
• 22:31
  was a really good pitch, the really good rise ball.
• 22:35
  I believed him playing Little League.
• 22:38
  I was really bad. I either threw the ball over the
• 22:42
  fence and I'm talking like way over the backstop or yes, or I
• 22:52
  hit somebody. I probably hit five kids a game.
• 22:58
  It wasn't until after Little League my dad got me into travel
• 23:05
  ball and I played 12 and under travel ball with pretty
• 23:10
  competitive team from Arizona. Now when I say I played, I was
• 23:15
  on the team. I don't think I actually played
• 23:18
  because I was, I was learning. I didn't I, I was so far behind,
• 23:26
  you know, I didn't actually start pitching or playing until
• 23:30
  I was 12. So all of these other kids had
• 23:34
  already been playing, you know, they had already played 10 and
• 23:37
  under, and this was their second year of 12 and under.
• 23:41
  And I'm coming in as a second year, 12 and under, still
• 23:45
  throwing the ball over the fence in the backyard.
• 23:48
  So I probably didn't get anywhere close to maybe being
• 23:54
  any good until I was 14, maybe 15.
• 23:59
  It just all started to click about that age.
• 24:03
  Now as part of the issue, I mean, were you tall?
• 24:06
  Did you have a big growth spurt? Were you kind of awkward a
• 24:09
  little bit, and then he kind of caught up to it around there.
• 24:13
  Yep, all of the above. All of the above, and I don't
• 24:17
  think I really understood it much.
• 24:19
  Sounds like when you were pitching the safest place for a
• 24:23
  batter to stand would have been on the plate.
• 24:25
  If she stood down there then she had very little chance of
• 24:28
  getting hit. Very true.
• 24:31
  That's funny. That's funny.
• 24:32
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:34
  It I was behind everybody else, but I didn't know that I was
• 24:41
  behind everybody else. Every single night my dad came
• 24:45
  home from work, we would go in the backyard and we would throw.
• 24:48
  It was like clockwork. There were many times when I
• 24:51
  didn't want to go out there and throw, and he still made me.
• 24:54
  We'd probably I'd probably fight him on it and be like, no, I
• 24:58
  don't want to do this. I want to sit on the couch and
• 25:00
  watch TV or I want to go hang out and wet and play with my
• 25:05
  friends. You know, he always changed my
• 25:08
  mind about going to practice and it was worth it.
• 25:15
  You know, looking back, it was worth it during the time, during
• 25:18
  the time I was like, no, I want to go outside and play hide and
• 25:21
  seek with my friends or I want I'd rather be doing this.
• 25:25
  But looking back, I'm really glad that he never gave in to
• 25:31
  me. He always pushed me to, hey,
• 25:35
  let's just, let's just do it for 30 minutes in the backyard.
• 25:39
  And I, I was, I was OK with that.
• 25:41
  It was a good compromise, you know, but 30 minutes every
• 25:45
  single day in the backyard, it started to pay off.
• 25:49
  And when I started to notice that it was paying off, I didn't
• 25:53
  really fight him about it anymore.
• 25:56
  I was like, yeah, let's go throw.
• 25:58
  Yeah, that that probably does help.
• 26:01
  When you start to see the results either like oh OK hey
• 26:04
  I'm starting to get good at this, then it becomes a lot more
• 26:07
  fun. Yeah.
• 26:08
  Yeah, that it's great that he saw the potential in you too,
• 26:11
  you know, even even though it wasn't quite there.
• 26:14
  He must have seen, you know, kind of that longer Rd. even
• 26:17
  when you couldn't see it. For sure, for sure.
• 26:20
  I mean, I didn't even during that time, I didn't even know
• 26:25
  that he played men's fast pitch. So I was just thinking like how
• 26:29
  the how does he know all this stuff?
• 26:31
  You know, like, but besides the fact that parent, you know, when
• 26:35
  you're younger, parents always say, oh, I know everything, you
• 26:39
  know, but like he really did. But I didn't know how he knew it
• 26:45
  all or knew about softball. It wasn't until like I finally
• 26:53
  figured out, Oh, he really does know what he's talking about
• 26:58
  because he played. He has, you know, he was a, he
• 27:03
  was also a pitcher, you know? Yeah.
• 27:08
  Then I really started to believe him, though I'm I'm not going to
• 27:12
  lie, I did butt heads with him. And I guess that's just, you
• 27:17
  know, parent, daughter, parent child.
• 27:22
  I've seen you, I've seen you guys communicate at some of the
• 27:26
  clinics and I can see it. Yeah, I mean, shoot, until this
• 27:30
  day, right? Since I was 12.
• 27:33
  Even though I think he doesn't know or I, I lead on to make him
• 27:39
  believe you don't know. You're wrong.
• 27:41
  I know deep down inside he does know and I'm thinking like shoot
• 27:46
  he's right, but am I going to tell him he's right?
• 27:49
  Nope. No, he's hearing it here for the
• 27:53
  first time. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:56
  Unless. Unless you want us to cut that
• 27:57
  part out. No, don't he'll.
• 28:01
  He'll love that. He'll love that.
• 28:04
  All right, so so living in Arizona playing softball, did
• 28:07
  you dream of going to EU of? AI did.
• 28:10
  I did more U of A than ASU. It was.
• 28:14
  It was like the dream school for me.
• 28:17
  They didn't really come and watch.
• 28:20
  I'm sure they were there watching at some point, but they
• 28:23
  just didn't have any interest. I didn't get the interest from
• 28:28
  the Arizona schools, put it that way.
• 28:31
  OK. I, I never understood why, but I
• 28:35
  never, I didn't really let it affect me.
• 28:37
  I just kind of moved on, you know, they moved on.
• 28:40
  They had, they had somebody else that they were looking for or
• 28:45
  maybe they weren't looking for my position at that time.
• 28:49
  You know, I just, I didn't really let it affect me.
• 28:53
  You know, I just kind of OK. Well, I really would love to go
• 28:59
  there, but if you're not showing me any interest, then I'm not
• 29:03
  going to like beg you. I wasn't that good at that time.
• 29:09
  I was. I was good, but I wasn't like
• 29:11
  that good. Well, then what was your
• 29:14
  recruiting journey like? So, you know, that wasn't a part
• 29:16
  of it, but I mean, did you get a lot of interest otherwise since
• 29:20
  you were in in, you know, kind of in that high school age?
• 29:23
  That's 18 U16 U area. Yeah, yeah, it was.
• 29:27
  It wasn't until maybe my second year of Sixteens that everything
• 29:32
  started to change. Back then we didn't have the
• 29:36
  e-mail. Did we have e-mail?
• 29:40
  e-mail correspondence? I know, right?
• 29:43
  We didn't have the e-mail correspondence.
• 29:46
  So coaches wrote letters, We wrote letters.
• 29:49
  Like I'm talking snail mail letters.
• 29:52
  Package up AVHS tape and send it out.
• 29:54
  Yep, Yep, exactly, exactly. I don't remember if I, I don't
• 30:01
  think I actually made like a skills tape.
• 30:04
  And the only reason behind that was because my, the, the travel
• 30:10
  ball team that I played with, we were at all of the big
• 30:13
  tournaments. And back then, there was only a
• 30:17
  few really big tournaments where all of the coaches were at, you
• 30:21
  know, so it's not like nowadays where there's a ton of big
• 30:24
  tournaments and there's like, coaches sprinkled here and
• 30:28
  there, you know, there were only a few.
• 30:31
  So we were always at all of the big tournaments and all of the
• 30:35
  coaches were there. So we didn't necessarily have to
• 30:39
  do much of sending out videos. You know, we just would say, I
• 30:45
  play for this team. I'm interested in coming to your
• 30:49
  school, you know, and that might have been about it.
• 30:54
  Nowadays, kids have the sports recruit profiles.
• 30:58
  You know, they're emailing the coaches like every single week,
• 31:02
  sending them their schedules. I don't even think I sent a
• 31:06
  coach my schedule. They just knew what teams to
• 31:10
  watch. It was more refined, not a ton
• 31:15
  of branch off teams. So when you were going to watch
• 31:20
  the Bat Busters or you were going to watch the athletics or
• 31:27
  the Hot Chops or my team was the Little Saints, we only had one
• 31:34
  Little Saints. There wasn't a Little Saints
• 31:36
  from Texas and the Little Saints, Saints from Virginia and
• 31:42
  the Little Saints from, you know, it was just the one Little
• 31:46
  Saints from Arizona. So you, you knew, you knew who
• 31:50
  was on that team. You knew who coached that team.
• 31:53
  And you didn't get confused on which actual which team you were
• 32:00
  watching. It was the gold team or you
• 32:04
  know, the 18 gold team or it was the 16 and under team, you know,
• 32:08
  not not 16 and under a 16 and under B United Academy.
• 32:15
  It was just that one team. So as far as recruiting goes, it
• 32:21
  was easier I thought back then than it is now.
• 32:27
  It seemed pretty carefree in our day than it is now.
• 32:33
  It seems very chaotic now, but I did, I did have a ton of
• 32:37
  interest. My mom had like a big plastic
• 32:43
  box and she is so organized, but she had file folders, files that
• 32:51
  you use like for your taxes and she had every, she had like
• 32:57
  states written on the top of these folders and anytime I
• 33:03
  would get a letter from a different state, she put it in
• 33:07
  the folder. So I had many letters.
• 33:11
  I really wish she still had that box because it would be really
• 33:14
  cool to go back and look at it. She had it all organized.
• 33:18
  It was. It was really cool.
• 33:20
  I did have a lot of interest though, yeah.
• 33:23
  Lou, time out. Hey Jay, on a scale of 1 to 10,
• 33:28
  how important do you think brush contact is for pictures?
• 33:32
  It's pretty high up there Ken, probably a 10 since it's hard to
• 33:35
  get maximum speed and or accuracy without it.
• 33:38
  Yeah I agree, but have you ever had a student who struggled to
• 33:41
  get good light brush contact? Sure, all the time, in fact.
• 33:47
  Especially when they've been taught hello elbow and are
• 33:49
  trying to throw around their hips or they're sliding their
• 33:52
  hips out of the way doing that crazy ninja move.
• 33:55
  So what do you do when you run run into that situation?
• 33:57
  Keep railing on them until they get it right.
• 34:00
  I used to do that a lot, but then I learned about a product
• 34:03
  called Pitch Squeak Ken. Pitch squeak.
• 34:06
  What's that? It's a cool little armband with
• 34:09
  a squeaker inside of it. Like a dog toy.
• 34:12
  Yeah, kinda. So how does it work?
• 34:15
  Well, you slip the armband onto the pitcher's forearm and you
• 34:19
  set it so the squeaker is where the brush contact should happen.
• 34:22
  Then when the pitcher goes into release, she tries to get it to
• 34:26
  squeak like this. If she makes it happen, she got
• 34:30
  brush. If there's no sound, she knows
• 34:32
  immediately and can make a correction.
• 34:35
  Wow cool, so she gets immediate audible as well as tactile
• 34:39
  feedback. Oh, there you go again, showing
• 34:42
  off with those big and technical words again.
• 34:45
  But yeah, she can feel it and hear it.
• 34:47
  Does it really work? You bet it does.
• 34:51
  I use it with my students all the time and it helps them learn
• 34:54
  how to get brush contact pretty quickly if they practice with
• 34:58
  it. Sounds neat.
• 34:59
  Where can I get one? It's easy, Ken.
• 35:01
  Just e-mail support@pitchsqueak.com and
• 35:06
  Jason, the inventor of it and a Poly Girl certified pitching
• 35:09
  coach himself, will ask you how many you want and send them
• 35:13
  right out. I'll do that today.
• 35:15
  Thanks, Jay. What's that address again?
• 35:18
  You bet, Ken. It's support@pitchsqueak.com one
• 35:23
  more time for those of you who are listening,
• 35:26
  support@pitchsqueak.com. And don't forget to mention in
• 35:30
  the e-mail that you heard about it right here on From the
• 35:33
  Coach's Mouth podcast and you'll receive 10% off play ball.
• 35:41
  So Sarah, so you had a lot of interest.
• 35:44
  Why did you end up choosing with going with Texas A&M Corpus
• 35:48
  Christi? The coaches were there from the
• 35:51
  very beginning. They watched me play when I
• 35:56
  wasn't really good and they were at every single game and they
• 36:03
  just continued to watch me as I kind of evolved in my travel
• 36:08
  ball era. They were persistent, they were
• 36:11
  consistent, and back then you could only go on five official
• 36:16
  visits and they were one of my 5 I actually only took.
• 36:22
  I only had four visits lined up. I actually only took one visit
• 36:30
  and then I took the A&M Corpus Christi visit my second time and
• 36:36
  I was sold. So I never even went on the
• 36:38
  other 3 visits. Just like the campus and you
• 36:43
  know, in addition to the coaches, you like the campus
• 36:45
  location. Loved.
• 36:47
  I loved all of that, the campus, the location.
• 36:50
  I don't think my dad really loved my decision because the
• 36:56
  softball program was very, very new, but I felt so at home when
• 37:03
  I was there. I loved the campus, palm trees
• 37:07
  all over the place, the beach across the street.
• 37:10
  We were, you know, Texas A&M, Corpus Christi is technically on
• 37:15
  its own little island. So we're we were called the
• 37:19
  Islanders. It was a small town feel, which
• 37:24
  wasn't what I was used to growing up in Phoenix.
• 37:28
  And it, it honestly felt like a little destination vacation.
• 37:32
  Like I was thinking, Dang, I could go to school here.
• 37:36
  They didn't have dorms. They had apartments on the Bay.
• 37:42
  I think that sold me like I was like, yes, yes, please.
• 37:49
  Yeah. The, the campus, the campus was
• 37:53
  small enough that I could walk everywhere.
• 37:57
  I could literally wait, you know, and I did do this.
• 38:02
  I could wake up at 8:50, no, maybe 8:45.
• 38:08
  I could wake up at 8:45, leave my, you know, get quickly
• 38:13
  dressed, leave my apartment at like 855, walk 5 minutes to
• 38:23
  campus and be there at my class. I mean when we were in season it
• 38:30
  was the best possible solution for going home and taking in
• 38:39
  between class naps. That's.
• 38:42
  Awesome because our because our field, our field was literally
• 38:49
  on campus as well. So really, I mean, if you didn't
• 38:53
  have a car, you could walk everywhere.
• 38:57
  And I didn't have a car my freshman year, you could walk
• 39:00
  everywhere. It was it was really the
• 39:02
  greatest setup for me. Yeah, that sounds great.
• 39:07
  All right, so from what we read, you were not drafted after you
• 39:11
  were done playing in college. You were not drafted to the
• 39:13
  National Pro Fast Pitch League, which was obviously a big
• 39:17
  oversight on their part, but how did you then end up getting into
• 39:20
  it? After college, I don't vividly
• 39:25
  remember thinking, oh, I'm going to play professionally after
• 39:30
  college. It wasn't really, I don't know.
• 39:33
  It wasn't really on my radar. So I, I wasn't, you know, I, I
• 39:39
  wasn't like disappointed that I wasn't really drafted.
• 39:42
  I don't think my dad got an e-mail from a really reputable
• 39:49
  coach from Connecticut asking if his daughter wanted to play for
• 39:58
  this women's open team. And we talked about it and he he
• 40:04
  emailed him back and some sort of correspondence went on and I
• 40:08
  said, yeah, of course. Yeah, that would, that'd be
• 40:10
  cool. So I ended up going to play in
• 40:14
  Connecticut for the Stratford breakouts and.
• 40:20
  That's a pretty legendary team. So legendary.
• 40:24
  I I didn't realize it until I actually got there.
• 40:27
  I was just thinking, cool, I'm going to go play ball for the
• 40:31
  summer and I'm going to get paid a little bit, you know?
• 40:34
  It was the best summer of my life.
• 40:38
  It was so fun. And after that summer, the
• 40:46
  Stratford Breakouts were asked to join the NPF, which turned
• 40:54
  the team into the Connecticut Breakouts.
• 41:00
  So I was already on the team and they kept me on there.
• 41:03
  So the Stratford Breakouts, when we were a team, we had girls who
• 41:09
  were a mix of current college players, long, long time retired
• 41:16
  softball players, and just out of college players.
• 41:19
  So when the team joined the NPF, they took the girls who had just
• 41:24
  finished college and that were kind of like long past college
• 41:29
  and kept them on the team. And then the girls who were
• 41:33
  currently in college, they still played for the Stratford
• 41:37
  Breakouts. So now you had two different
• 41:41
  teams, right? They had the Stratford breakouts
• 41:43
  for the kids who were in high school coming to play travel
• 41:46
  ball or still in college playing summer ball.
• 41:52
  And then the girls who had already graduated college were
• 41:55
  now part of the NPF on the Connecticut breakouts.
• 42:00
  And that's basically how I got my foot in the door in the NPF.
• 42:04
  It was just honestly luck. If if now that I'm thinking
• 42:09
  about it, it was just luck of the draw, you know, I.
• 42:13
  Right place, right time. Yeah, right place, right time.
• 42:17
  So do you have any, any stories you could share with us with our
• 42:20
  funny stories or just stories that you remember when for when
• 42:23
  you were playing in the MPF? Just something I mean that pops
• 42:26
  in your mind like do you always remember?
• 42:28
  Like if you thinking back on it. When you guys gave me that
• 42:30
  question, I was thinking, yes, there are so many funny stories,
• 42:36
  but no, I do not remember them. That's all right, Sarah, it's
• 42:41
  been a while. You know what?
• 42:44
  There is something funny because you know, listening to your
• 42:49
  guys's last podcast with Kelly Montavo, this is funny.
• 42:53
  So I know she talked about her height a lot and we have, we
• 43:00
  haven't really necessarily touched on my height, but
• 43:04
  obviously I'm 63 for people who don't know me.
• 43:08
  And there was a time when I played on the You Triple SA
• 43:15
  Pride. One of my best friends on the
• 43:19
  team was also a pitcher, Desiree Serrano.
• 43:23
  She was maybe an inch shorter than me.
• 43:26
  After I played for the Connecticut Breakouts, I played
• 43:29
  for the Washington Glory. We played together on the Glory
• 43:33
  for two seasons. And then if I'm not sure you
• 43:38
  guys or anybody is familiar with this, but the Glory was bought
• 43:43
  out by EU Triple SA Pride. So they bought the roster out
• 43:50
  from the glory and a handful of us glory girls made the first
• 43:58
  roster for EU triple SA Pride. And she, her and I removed from
• 44:04
  the Glory to the pride and must have been our second year of the
• 44:10
  pride because I think Kelly would have been of rookie in the
• 44:15
  league, but Dez and I were together all the time.
• 44:21
  And so two women, young, young women walking around at 6263 it
• 44:29
  you didn't see that very often. And every single year after that
• 44:38
  first year at the NPF banquet, we would take a photo with Kevin
• 44:48
  and she would stand in between us.
• 44:52
  That's awesome. That's awesome.
• 44:54
  And then they would go for a close, closer picture and they'd
• 44:58
  just see the top of her head, right?
• 45:00
  I didn't, you know, I didn't even think of that.
• 45:03
  But yeah, I mean, we just thought that was the funniest
• 45:08
  thing. And I know we have a few photos.
• 45:11
  I'll have to say. Oh.
• 45:12
  That'd be great. That would be fantastic.
• 45:14
  We have a few photos every single year that we just took
• 45:19
  with her in between US. And then after Des retired, I
• 45:25
  still held up my end of the picture taking promise with her
• 45:30
  so I would always have a photo with Kelly.
• 45:34
  And I always was like, hey, Kel, you know, do you want me to
• 45:39
  squat down? I can I can come down to your
• 45:41
  level. You know, she always told me,
• 45:45
  no, don't squat down. I want you to be your height.
• 45:48
  And so, yeah, that was always something something that just
• 45:54
  kind of sticks in my head. Obviously there was a lot of
• 45:58
  other stories. I just literally cannot remember
• 46:01
  them because I played eleven seasons in the NPF.
• 46:04
  So to remember back man. Kind of runs together.
• 46:09
  Yeah, it does. It's funny too with that height
• 46:11
  because you know, when you talk about squatting down, I
• 46:15
  remember, you know, a couple times when we were doing a
• 46:18
  clinic together and I'd see you and you come up to give me a
• 46:21
  hug. And I always felt like a little
• 46:22
  kid because you always, you know, I'm like 5-10.
• 46:25
  So you'd always have to kind of squat down a little bit to give
• 46:28
  me a hug. And it was like, I feel like I'm
• 46:30
  8 years old again. Yeah, yeah, Sarah, I want to, I
• 46:36
  want to Fast forward just a little bit and I want to talk
• 46:38
  about when you went to play with the Japanese league,
• 46:41
  professional league. First of all, give us an idea of
• 46:43
  what that was like. And and more importantly, I want
• 46:45
  people to understand what what their warm up looks like and
• 46:48
  what their regiment looks like. I don't think people understand
• 46:51
  like what that is like compared to how we have travel ball kids
• 46:55
  here warm up. Just give a little bit of of
• 46:57
  insight into what that was like for you playing there and then
• 47:00
  what that regimented like warm up and day was.
• 47:04
  Wow. All I can say about Japan was
• 47:07
  wow, the hands down best experience playing ball that I
• 47:14
  think I have had. I had never been out of the
• 47:17
  country. So my first like out of the
• 47:21
  country experience was flying to Japan to go play ball with the
• 47:26
  best of the best. They are just so good over
• 47:31
  there. They are on another level.
• 47:35
  The speed of practice this just speed of how they approach
• 47:41
  everything in the game is faster than what I was used to and what
• 47:49
  we are used to here in the States.
• 47:53
  They are extremely meticulous and uniform in their warm up, in
• 48:03
  preparing for the warm up, in their preparation for the game,
• 48:11
  the practice, even the preparation for after practice.
• 48:18
  You know, it was truly an amazing experience playing in
• 48:21
  Japan. When I say everything is
• 48:25
  unified, every single detail, they are like a drill team.
• 48:32
  To be honest it the the only way to explain it is their pregame
• 48:38
  warm up. Is drill team unified everybody
• 48:43
  doing the exact same movement on a four or six count quickly, no
• 48:53
  standing around, no talking off to the side.
• 49:00
  They are all about business, you know and you see I, I'm going to
• 49:06
  refer to baseball because one of the best players right now is a
• 49:12
  Japanese born baseball player, you know, Shohei Otani.
• 49:16
  They show you glimpses of his workout and his warm up and his
• 49:23
  routine and when you see things on the TV about this is how he's
• 49:31
  been training or this is what he does.
• 49:35
  I am just sitting there smiling and shaking my head because I
• 49:41
  know I have seen that first hand with the Japanese women.
• 49:47
  Yeah. It's like, yeah, what he's doing
• 49:49
  isn't a one off that. That's no specific to him.
• 49:51
  That's cultural. Cultural.
• 49:53
  It is very cultural. Yes, it is.
• 49:56
  It is very cultural. I know Rick has talked about too
• 50:00
  the whole kaizan thing, you know, the continuous improvement
• 50:04
  that, you know, they do in manufacturing.
• 50:06
  And he said that they apply the same thing to softball.
• 50:09
  I'm sure that's something you saw too, where they go, OK, this
• 50:13
  didn't quite work so we're going to change it like this and
• 50:16
  always looking to get better. Yeah, I mean practices.
• 50:21
  When I say from sun up to sundown, I am not lying.
• 50:27
  We would have 8 to 9, sometimes 10 hour practices.
• 50:35
  Wow, that's incredible. Repetitive things over and over
• 50:39
  again. I remember this is the summer of
• 50:45
  man 2020 because it was during COVID, so COVID taking place in
• 50:53
  the States. I was in Japan and we were still
• 50:57
  playing and there was a break in the summer because usually we go
• 51:07
  home during the summer, but we weren't able to get back into
• 51:11
  the states. You know, the border was closed
• 51:13
  at the state. It was open in Japan.
• 51:16
  We could fly, we could leave Japan, but we couldn't get back
• 51:20
  into the state. So we stayed in Japan and we
• 51:22
  trained and when I tell you it was my hardest but most
• 51:28
  rewarding summer that I have ever had, it was insane.
• 51:33
  I had never been in Japan during the summer.
• 51:36
  It was so hot, it was so humid. We were bringing like 3 and 4
• 51:43
  changes of clothes to practice because we would sweat through
• 51:49
  our clothes and then change and then continue practicing and
• 51:53
  then sweat through our clothes and then change.
• 51:55
  And continue practice. Wow, yeah.
• 51:59
  It yeah, it our coach prepared us that summer for the
• 52:05
  second-half of the season. So, well, like the hitters, they
• 52:10
  had to have an ungodly amount of swings a day.
• 52:18
  And for the actual month, like, I know I'm going to be
• 52:23
  butchering this number. It's going to be lower than what
• 52:28
  it actually is. But I want to say they had to
• 52:31
  have like 400 swings a day and. That's.
• 52:37
  Insane over 1000. They had to.
• 52:39
  They had to have over 1000 swings for that one month.
• 52:44
  Wow. And it was, this was the month
• 52:47
  of June, the hottest month of the summer.
• 52:53
  And the pitchers, we had to run 500 foul polls that month so you
• 53:03
  could figure out. I know.
• 53:07
  Wow. You could figure out how many
• 53:12
  foul polls you wanted to run per day to be able to finish with
• 53:17
  500 that month. And in my head, I knew that was
• 53:24
  crazy. I knew that what we were doing
• 53:26
  was crazy. But we were so bought in and
• 53:32
  into the culture we were bought into how this was going to
• 53:37
  change us. I mean, you had to be sitting
• 53:40
  there thinking at some point, coach, I'm not planning on
• 53:42
  running the ball across the plate.
• 53:45
  You know what? I had a nervous breakdown a few
• 53:53
  times, myself and my teammate Lisa Malden.
• 53:57
  I know many times we were like, this is crazy.
• 54:00
  Like, why are we doing this? This is crazy.
• 54:03
  We would ask those questions we already knew the answer to.
• 54:06
  It was just more like us saying this is so crazy.
• 54:09
  Like, Can you imagine if we actually finish this?
• 54:13
  Like, are we really going to finish this task that our coach
• 54:16
  gave us? And we did.
• 54:18
  Everybody finish the task? We were so determined.
• 54:23
  The coach we played for, he was such a great coach.
• 54:27
  He didn't speak full English. He didn't even speak English
• 54:30
  much. We figured out how to
• 54:35
  communicate with him. Most of the teams, most of the
• 54:39
  other teams had a translator with them at all times.
• 54:43
  We did not have that. We had a translator, but she
• 54:48
  wasn't with us all the time. And they were bringing in like
• 54:51
  random people, throwing them into the mix, expecting them to
• 54:55
  know the game to help interpret for us.
• 54:58
  But for the most part, we had like Google Translate and we had
• 55:02
  this pocket buddy. They called, I think Pocket, I
• 55:07
  don't know, pocket buddy that was like a little tiny, like,
• 55:10
  I'm talking like computer translator that we would use.
• 55:15
  And we figured out a way to communicate with our coach
• 55:20
  enough to know what he wanted from us.
• 55:24
  The training we did that month, that summer, prepared us for
• 55:32
  August and September and which was playoffs.
• 55:39
  So we were playing in the Division two.
• 55:44
  I'm trying to think of this. I might have my years wrong, it
• 55:47
  might have been 2019, but either way, we were there.
• 55:51
  We were playing for Division 2 championship and come playoffs
• 55:58
  we were on top of our game. All of the other teams were
• 56:04
  dying out there on the field because it was so hot and
• 56:08
  because they weren't in shape and we were breezing past
• 56:14
  everybody. I mean, it was the craziest
• 56:18
  feeling. I don't think I ever prepared so
• 56:21
  hard in my life to play then I did that summer.
• 56:28
  We had to win the second division in order to get moved
• 56:34
  back up to the First Division and we won the whole thing that
• 56:38
  summer. We won the whole thing.
• 56:40
  So we won it. It was so worth it.
• 56:44
  It was so much more worth it because we trained so hard in
• 56:51
  the middle of, I mean, I can't even express to you guys how
• 56:59
  horrible it was raining. It sounds like, yeah, it sounds
• 57:04
  like a ton. So worth it.
• 57:07
  It was so worth it in the end. We won the whole thing.
• 57:11
  We got moved up to the First Division.
• 57:14
  We came back the next year and we pretty much balled out.
• 57:18
  I mean, people were not expecting this team from the
• 57:24
  lower division. It's not a lower division.
• 57:26
  It's just not one. You know, it wasn't Division
• 57:30
  One, it was a division two. It was a lower level, I guess of
• 57:33
  play. I'm not sure.
• 57:35
  I think it honestly, I think it had to do with the amount of
• 57:40
  money that the teams had to provide it.
• 57:45
  It was based off of money, I think.
• 57:47
  And we came back and the next season played so, so well and
• 57:53
  nobody was expecting that. I mean, the first the, the
• 57:57
  season was broken up into two different halves.
• 58:00
  In that first half, I think we only lost one game and we came
• 58:04
  out and we beat teams like Toyota.
• 58:07
  We came out and beat bit camera. We came out and beat Uden and
• 58:13
  all of these teams have like all of the best players in Japan on
• 58:18
  these teams and we just came out and beat them all.
• 58:21
  And I was so it was like such a great end to my career.
• 58:28
  We bought in and we did whatever it took to compete together as
• 58:37
  one on the field. Such a great experience, sorry I
• 58:42
  expanded. In my.
• 58:45
  Head like reliving, reliving it, yeah.
• 58:49
  Yeah, we can see the trauma. We're not using video for them.
• 58:52
  We're not using video for the podcast, but we can see the
• 58:56
  trauma on your. Face.
• 58:57
  That you remembered it. Yeah, Yep.
• 59:01
  So Sarah, I want, I want to Fast forward a little bit now and I,
• 59:04
  and I want to talk a little bit. I know you're doing, you're back
• 59:06
  home. You're, you're, you're down
• 59:08
  there in Austin and you're doing some pitching lessons.
• 59:10
  And Ken and I asked us a lot of a lot of the people that we've
• 59:13
  had on this podcast. What do you think about some of
• 59:16
  the recent pitching rule changes, such as allowing
• 59:18
  leaping? What, what are your thoughts on
• 59:20
  that? Oh, head just went down.
• 59:22
  Oh. My gosh, this is so
• 59:28
  controversial. I'm sure I, I don't know if it's
• 59:31
  because I'm old school. I like things the way that they
• 59:35
  were, you know, when I played, I'm not a big fan of the
• 59:39
  leaping. I do not teach the leaping.
• 59:43
  I do not recommend the leaping. And in my lessons, I don't
• 59:49
  encourage it. I just think that I don't know.
• 59:54
  Is it a cheater version of pitching?
• 59:57
  Does it actually help you? I don't know.
• 1:00:02
  A lot of people have, you know, different opinions.
• 1:00:05
  I think that using the ground as much as possible is beneficial.
• 1:00:12
  You know, I think that once you're off of the ground, you're
• 1:00:16
  losing the the ground force drive that you can have with if
• 1:00:21
  you actually had your feet on the ground.
• 1:00:24
  I think that when you leap, it changes your release point.
• 1:00:28
  So you've got to be like really freaking good to have the same
• 1:00:34
  release point and the same landing every single time.
• 1:00:38
  I mean, those are so many different variables that you
• 1:00:43
  have to make sure are perfect and happen the same every single
• 1:00:49
  time to be successful with leaping.
• 1:00:53
  So you don't, you don't think it would have helped you if you
• 1:00:56
  would have had the opportunity, you wouldn't have done it?
• 1:00:58
  Nope, I would have never done it all.
• 1:01:01
  Right. Another question we had was you
• 1:01:04
  hear a lot people talking about that you only really need 3
• 1:01:07
  pitches, a rise ball, a drop ball and a change up.
• 1:01:09
  Do you subscribe to that or I mean I heard you mentioned
• 1:01:12
  having five pitches before. You know, what do you think on
• 1:01:15
  that? Nowadays, if you have something
• 1:01:19
  that goes up, if you have something that goes down and if
• 1:01:22
  you have something that's a change of speed, I think you're
• 1:01:25
  doing pretty good. If you have something else that
• 1:01:30
  goes side to side, I think would be more beneficial.
• 1:01:35
  You know, you're watching college softball these days and
• 1:01:38
  sometimes you're seeing the pitcher only throwing maybe two
• 1:01:42
  or three pitches. I, in my lessons, teach many
• 1:01:50
  pitches and then when they get older, they can figure out which
• 1:01:56
  ones they want to keep, if it's all of them or which ones they
• 1:02:01
  want to take away. And sometimes they don't have a
• 1:02:06
  choice when they get to college, if the coach is calling the
• 1:02:09
  pitches, they're going to call XY and Z and maybe not ABC.
• 1:02:15
  You know, I always encourage my players to work on all of the
• 1:02:24
  pitches because the way that I coach and teach the other
• 1:02:32
  pitches, meaning like the screwball, the curveball, they
• 1:02:38
  are based off of the drop ball or the rise ball, you know, So
• 1:02:45
  if you want to throw a palm up curveball, then you got to know
• 1:02:51
  how you're supposed to move a rise ball.
• 1:02:54
  To me, if you're wanting to throw a drop curve, well, you
• 1:02:58
  got to know how to throw a drop ball or at least a fastball with
• 1:03:04
  internal rotation and pronation on the arm and on the the path
• 1:03:10
  that the arm makes. I tried to make it as easy as
• 1:03:15
  possible, but you still need the base pitches in order to throw
• 1:03:22
  the big time pitches, you know, So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of
• 1:03:27
  torn on that question. Eventually, when you get older,
• 1:03:30
  you might some, you might narrow.
• 1:03:33
  It. You might narrow it down.
• 1:03:35
  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I personally like that answer that you said
• 1:03:38
  because I'm, I feel the same way I think Jay does.
• 1:03:41
  I like to expose my students, you know, one at a time, but
• 1:03:45
  expose them to all the different pitches, figure out what they
• 1:03:47
  throw best. And then if they've got
• 1:03:50
  something that just doesn't really work very well for them,
• 1:03:52
  then we set that aside and we emphasize other things.
• 1:03:56
  But how are you going to know if that kid can throw a good rise
• 1:03:59
  ball if you don't ever try it? How do you know if she could
• 1:04:01
  throw a good curveball? And, you know, be able to use
• 1:04:05
  that as a, you know, even if she keeps it in her pocket for three
• 1:04:07
  innings and then it has to go through the line of a second or
• 1:04:10
  a third time, now she's got something different to throw at
• 1:04:13
  them instead of the same stuff that they've already seen.
• 1:04:16
  Yeah, and your body feels different when you throw
• 1:04:22
  different pitches. You might be giving more WHIP on
• 1:04:25
  this pitch and you might be utilizing your fingers more on
• 1:04:29
  another pitch. And I want them to experience
• 1:04:35
  all of the feelings throwing all of the different pitches so that
• 1:04:41
  when they don't understand a specific pitch, I can say, well,
• 1:04:46
  when you're throwing this pitch, this is what you feel.
• 1:04:50
  I want you to feel that exact same thing when you're throwing
• 1:04:54
  this other pitch, you know, and just more body awareness.
• 1:04:58
  It just, it just makes them more well-rounded, I think.
• 1:05:03
  Yeah, and sometimes too, you look at it, I've had that
• 1:05:06
  experience before, I'm sure you have, where I was trying to
• 1:05:09
  teach a kid at the rise ball and she kept throwing it with
• 1:05:12
  curveball spin and went, well, let's instead of fighting the
• 1:05:15
  tide, let's learn to throw a curveball and then we can
• 1:05:18
  revisit the rise ball maybe a little bit later when you're
• 1:05:21
  better prepared. Yep, Yep.
• 1:05:24
  And I actually do that a lot in my lessons.
• 1:05:27
  If their curveball, their palm up curveball isn't working, I'll
• 1:05:30
  be like, well, let's come back to that.
• 1:05:33
  Let's let's work on your rise ball and we'll work on the rise
• 1:05:37
  ball for a while and then we'll go back to the curve.
• 1:05:40
  Because more than likely their wrists, their fingers, their
• 1:05:44
  hand position, it wasn't warmed up.
• 1:05:47
  They they didn't have enough practice doing that action
• 1:05:54
  prior, but they got themselves warmed up.
• 1:05:57
  They were like, Oh yeah, like they had the aha moment.
• 1:06:00
  Like, Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be doing that on my curve.
• 1:06:04
  And I just remembered this because I did this motion or
• 1:06:09
  action with my rise. So Sarah, I want to I want to
• 1:06:13
  ask you, we just got a couple more questions for you just just
• 1:06:16
  a couple years. So thank you so much for today
• 1:06:18
  hanging out with us. But here's one for you.
• 1:06:20
  Any do you have any advice, any advice for budding young
• 1:06:24
  pitchers or parents of young pitchers that are that are
• 1:06:27
  getting started? And then I'm going to follow up
• 1:06:29
  your answer with a little information that we talked about
• 1:06:32
  with the clinic. So if you can't get give some
• 1:06:35
  advice to some people, kids that are starting out, parents that
• 1:06:37
  have kids that are starting out. My number one word is patience.
• 1:06:44
  Yeah. Yeah, it's, I think parents,
• 1:06:49
  coaches and parents need to remember whether they are
• 1:06:53
  starting at 7 or if they are starting at 12 or 13 or 14, that
• 1:07:03
  specific moment, they are not going to college, they are not
• 1:07:09
  going to play professionally, they are not going to win an
• 1:07:15
  Olympic medal in that specific moment.
• 1:07:19
  So patience is key, and praise in the sense of encouragement,
• 1:07:28
  positivity, and practice. I mean Dang, did I just make up
• 1:07:34
  my? I think you did.
• 1:07:36
  I I really think you did. All of those things tied into
• 1:07:40
  one. Obviously this goes into a kid
• 1:07:46
  who's still who maybe isn't new. This still counts if your kid
• 1:07:53
  has been practicing or sorry, playing pitching for one year,
• 1:07:58
  three years, five years. This is so like fresh in my
• 1:08:02
  brain because I'm experiencing this right now and I feel like
• 1:08:08
  there's always a time in our pitching coaching journeys when
• 1:08:14
  the parents are just doing too much and the kids are just
• 1:08:20
  feeling it from the parents. They're not even able to feel it
• 1:08:23
  for themselves because they're feeling it from the parents.
• 1:08:27
  It takes a lot of hard work and time and dedication, and that's
• 1:08:33
  not necessarily only on the kid. It is on the coach and it is on
• 1:08:40
  the parent. Yeah, the kid can go out and
• 1:08:43
  practice on her own, but it's like a dual partnership, you
• 1:08:49
  know? It's, it's funny too, because
• 1:08:51
  this is pretty much a call back to what we talked about in the
• 1:08:53
  beginning when you were starting out and your dad.
• 1:08:56
  It's the whole idea of praise the effort rather than the
• 1:08:59
  outcome. You know, that was a great rise
• 1:09:03
  ball, honey. You threw it all the way over
• 1:09:04
  the fence. Yep.
• 1:09:06
  And so, Sarah, I want to, I want to, yeah, I want to share if I
• 1:09:09
  can with people. We we did a clinic down in
• 1:09:12
  Columbus IN years ago. And of course, you know, Rick,
• 1:09:17
  had you thrown a little bit And at the end of the clinic, I'll
• 1:09:19
  never forget this there. And I tell it to people all the
• 1:09:22
  time because it made a lasting impact on me and how I look at
• 1:09:26
  my daughter who's not a pitcher, but still how I look at it.
• 1:09:29
  And it was awesome. So everybody comes over and you
• 1:09:32
  and Rick are there and we're all standing by you and all the kids
• 1:09:34
  are asking questions and they're like, how fast did you ever
• 1:09:37
  throw a how, what was your fastest speed?
• 1:09:39
  And so you told them the fastest speed.
• 1:09:41
  And then I'll never forget. And then you you said to them,
• 1:09:44
  you said, well, guess, guess how old I was when I did it.
• 1:09:47
  And everybody thought you were in college or high school and
• 1:09:49
  you're like, Nope, I was in the NPF.
• 1:09:51
  I was, I think you said you were like 27 or something of that, if
• 1:09:54
  I remember correctly. And then the next thing that you
• 1:09:56
  said has had a lasting impact on me.
• 1:09:58
  And I hope people actually listen to this.
• 1:10:00
  You said to them, you are never a finished product.
• 1:10:05
  You're always working to get better and there's always things
• 1:10:07
  that you can get better AT. And you said when I can't, when
• 1:10:10
  I come home, whether I'm in Japan or if I, when I played in
• 1:10:13
  Italy, the MPFI would come. You said I would come home and I
• 1:10:15
  would do a lesson with my dad and there would be a list on the
• 1:10:18
  whiteboard of things I had to still continue to work on.
• 1:10:22
  And here you are talking about when you were in your late 20s
• 1:10:25
  and early 30s. And I, and I think that's such a
• 1:10:27
  great lesson for parents and kids to hear you're never a
• 1:10:30
  finished product and you just got to keep working it.
• 1:10:32
  So the patients and all that things that you just talked
• 1:10:34
  about right there is like absolutely spot on.
• 1:10:36
  And I just want to let you know I'll I'll never forget that.
• 1:10:39
  And I use that all the time. I'll say Sarah Polley through
• 1:10:42
  this past and guess when. And they're like when she was in
• 1:10:45
  college. I'm like, Nope, Nope.
• 1:10:47
  And so it's just, it's just it was a great, a great experience
• 1:10:50
  and great moment that I'll never forget.
• 1:10:51
  So thanks for saying that to those kids.
• 1:10:53
  I think everyone there needed to hear it, and I hope parents need
• 1:10:56
  to hear that too. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:10:58
  I think I remember hearing too, that you, you weren't even
• 1:11:01
  considered a particularly fast until you were fairly old for a
• 1:11:05
  pitcher. I mean, it wasn't like at 14 you
• 1:11:07
  were blasting the ball. You know, you were very.
• 1:11:10
  No, I wasn't. Yeah, I, I wasn't, I think maybe
• 1:11:15
  shoot, I, I probably lived in the in college.
• 1:11:19
  I probably lived in the 61 to 65 range.
• 1:11:26
  It wasn't until after college that I started.
• 1:11:31
  My speed just started picking up.
• 1:11:33
  Can you imagine the learning, the growing, the growing I'm?
• 1:11:39
  Saying that. Again and again.
• 1:11:41
  The learning, the growing, it keeps going.
• 1:11:45
  It just never ends. And you know, like I, I'm still
• 1:11:48
  growing, I'm still learning. I don't know it all.
• 1:11:51
  I still try and learn every single time I am with my dad
• 1:11:57
  now, or not necessarily only my dad.
• 1:12:00
  Anybody in the softball world who knows pitching, who maybe
• 1:12:06
  knows hitting, I'm still learning, taking notes, trying
• 1:12:11
  to figure out how to use those things to approach my pitchers
• 1:12:18
  to make them better for the people that they're going to be
• 1:12:22
  facing, you know, in the box. And just different adversities
• 1:12:28
  they're going to be facing in general as a pitcher on all of
• 1:12:32
  the different platforms in all of the leagues and anywhere that
• 1:12:37
  they're going to experience in their pitching career.
• 1:12:42
  If someone's interested in doing lessons with you, how do they
• 1:12:45
  get a hold of you and then do only Google in person lessons?
• 1:12:48
  Or do you do online lessons as well?
• 1:12:51
  I'm laughing because I am currently at full capacity so
• 1:12:56
  I'm not taking any new client, but until the summer, usually
• 1:13:01
  somebody would reach out via e-mail, which is on our Poly
• 1:13:07
  Girl website. They, I think, fill out like a
• 1:13:12
  little inquiry about pitching lessons.
• 1:13:17
  Most of the time people are recommended through other
• 1:13:22
  students, parents or recommended from coaches, college coaches or
• 1:13:29
  travel ball coaches or Poly Girl fast pitch coaches.
• 1:13:35
  And the websites Poly Girl, fastpitch.com.
• 1:13:39
  Yes, thank you, Ken. Yeah, I'm extremely busy.
• 1:13:43
  I'm sure you guys are as well. But I am looking forward to, I'm
• 1:13:48
  looking forward to the summer starting because then we can
• 1:13:51
  have unlimited amounts of hours instead of having to wait for
• 1:13:55
  school to get out. Yeah, same here.
• 1:13:58
  You know. So Sarah, just one more question
• 1:14:01
  for you today. And we asked this of everybody.
• 1:14:04
  So do you have any hidden talents or hobbies outside of
• 1:14:07
  softball that would surprise people?
• 1:14:10
  Well, growing up I did play the piano.
• 1:14:14
  OK and I know, I know. Shocking, right?
• 1:14:20
  I haven't taken a piano lesson or class in a very long time.
• 1:14:26
  But if there is sheet music on the piano, we have a piano at my
• 1:14:31
  parents house and I actually have a keyboard here.
• 1:14:34
  So I just, you know, whip it out and play every now and then.
• 1:14:37
  If there is sheet music on the piano, whenever I come home and
• 1:14:43
  visit, I can sit down, look at the sheet music and start
• 1:14:46
  playing. That's awesome.
• 1:14:47
  You can still read. I can still read it.
• 1:14:50
  I still remember all the keys. Yeah.
• 1:14:52
  My mom hates me whenever I do that because, you know, she, she
• 1:14:57
  she takes her piano classes every now and then, and it takes
• 1:15:02
  her forever to figure it out and read, read the music and sit
• 1:15:06
  down and play. And she's been practicing, you
• 1:15:09
  know, she, she might be practicing a song for like, I
• 1:15:12
  don't know, a couple weeks and I come home and I look at the
• 1:15:14
  music and I sit down and start playing it.
• 1:15:16
  So I. Mean a long time ago I used to
• 1:15:19
  be able to sight read really well.
• 1:15:21
  I played a variety of different instruments, played piano,
• 1:15:25
  played different instruments in the band and all that.
• 1:15:27
  And I could read, you know, every Clef and all that kind of
• 1:15:29
  stuff. It's all kind of foreign now.
• 1:15:31
  It's kind of like having a language.
• 1:15:33
  If you don't speak the language for a while, it's like, yeah, it
• 1:15:36
  sounds familiar, but I can't really make out what you're
• 1:15:38
  saying. Yep, Yep.
• 1:15:41
  All right. Well, that's fun.
• 1:15:42
  I didn't know that about you. We'll have to next time I see
• 1:15:45
  you. We'll have to find a piano
• 1:15:46
  somewhere, you know? For sure, I I really enjoyed
• 1:15:50
  that. It was a nice balance.
• 1:15:52
  It was a nice balance. Gotta love music.
• 1:15:55
  Yep. Well, Sarah, thank you so much.
• 1:15:59
  I mean, we, we told you to be an hour.
• 1:16:01
  We've obviously taken up a lot more of your time than that, but
• 1:16:04
  we really appreciate it. This is a great.
• 1:16:06
  Thank you so much, Sarah. Great.
• 1:16:08
  It was awesome speaking with you guys.
• 1:16:11
  Yeah. Thank you guys so much.
• 1:16:12
  You know, I I probably could sit here and talk with you guys for
• 1:16:15
  much longer, but I know we got to cut it off.
• 1:16:17
  I'm sure I'll see you guys. Yeah.
• 1:16:18
  We got to do it again. Yeah, we got to do it again for
• 1:16:21
  sure. Yeah, we do.
• 1:16:25
  Yeah. And get some of the questions
• 1:16:26
  that we weren't able to get to this time.
• 1:16:28
  Of course, of course. Jay, you want to say something
• 1:16:31
  about the T-shirt? Yeah, just like before.
• 1:16:33
  Yeah, just take a just a quick reminder again, we have a few
• 1:16:36
  T-shirts left and anybody that can follow that will follow us
• 1:16:40
  on Spotify, Apple podcast, YouTube, if you give us a follow
• 1:16:44
  and a share an episode. And again, this one would be
• 1:16:46
  another excellent episode to share.
• 1:16:49
  And just send us a message that you've done that.
• 1:16:51
  We will happily mail you a T-shirt.
• 1:16:53
  While supplies last in sizes last, we only have a few left
• 1:16:56
  which is awesome. So if you really want one, make
• 1:16:58
  sure you click follow on Spotify, Apple Podcast or
• 1:17:01
  YouTube and also share an episode out to let others know
• 1:17:04
  about this awesome podcast and we'll send your free T-shirt.
• 1:17:08
  All right, thanks, Jay. Well, that's it for us this
• 1:17:11
  week. Thanks to all of you for
• 1:17:12
  listening and the kind words you've been sharing with us.
• 1:17:14
  If you like what you're hearing, Please remember to give us a
• 1:17:17
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• 1:17:20
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• 1:17:23
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• 1:17:26
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• 1:17:29
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• 1:17:32
  people find us. On behalf of the From the
• 1:17:35
  Coaches Mouth podcast, have a great rest of your week and
• 1:17:38
  weekend.