TAKING CONTROL.(techniques for improved pitching in baseball)(Brief Article)

Pitchers need to master location before developing repertoire and increasing velocity of their pitches

THE PITCHERS ARE IN TROUBLE. There was more scoring during over the last two seasons (1999-2000), an average of 10.2 runs per game, than at any time in the previous 63 years.

To help the pitchers, the most common recommendation has been to raise the mound from 10 to 15 inches, which is the way it was prior to 1969. But there could be another remedy that would be even more effective: They should follow the long-ago advice of baseball greats Babe Ruth and Cy Young.

In his 1928 offering Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball, ghosted by Ford Frick, the only sportswriter to occupy the Commissioner's chaff, the Babe (who broke into the big leagues as a pitcher), suggested the following:

"The thing any pitcher has got to develop--the biggest single item in his whole stock of trade--is control! Don't let anyone kid you about it. The curve and the fast one are important; the change of pace and the other trick deliveries are great but they're not worth a plugged nickel unless you have control to go along with them.

"And by control I don't mean the ability to put the ball over the plate somewhere between the shoulders and knees, I mean the ability to hit a three-inch target nine times out of ten, the sort of control that lets you put the ball in the exact spot you want it, and to play a corner to the split fraction of an inch."

Cy Young, the master pitcher who won 511 games, the one major league record not likely to be equaled, made an identical recommendation in a 1912 article on How to Pitch. It was an instructional for boys, but can be applied to advantage by professionals at all levels of competition: