www.drmikemarshall.com

Teams are the ones who hire people not pitching coaches. There's no reason for a team not to investigate what he has to offer when there's literally hundreds of millions on the line. Say it with me: there is no conspiracy against Mike Marshall.

His "conspiracy" is that his guys consistently end up throwing 5-7 mph slower than he says they do. He's called Jeff Sparks cut from the Devil Rays part of the conspiracy against him. Then when Sparks throws 82-83 in Tigers camp when scouts get the chance to see him, the radar gun readings were a conspiracy because you know how easy it is to adjust a Stalker gun. Hogwash.

Might there be some scientific validity to some of his stuff? Maybe, hell I'd even say probably. But when your "most talented pitcher in the world" shows up throwing 82-83, you've got some issues.

I gave a background interview for the Marshall piece on HBO because I'm very familiar with his ideas.

Some of Marshall's stuff makes sense...

1. Pronation
2. Emphasis on conditioning

...but his arm action stuff makes me nervous.

I also don't think his guys throw with their entire bodies enough.

Marshall biggest problem is that he's IMPOSSIBLE to work with. I have a friend at the major league level who is interested in Marshall's ideas. Marshall's nice to him to his face and then rags on him on his web site.

That's not the way to make friends or to get people to adopt your ideas.

Who developed a system he called 'Throwing the round ball square' many years ago in Sanford, Florida. The idea was that if you square your body and follow through straight down, like pulling down a shade, instead of across the body you could drastically reduce the wear and tear on your arm. I know Tim Wakefield learned this technique and Tim Raines was an accolyte as a youngster. I attended his camp with the Bellorn brothers (Mark and David) and many other major leaguers attended and learned from Wes.
He died a few years ago but he wrote a book called 'It's How You Throw The Game'.

I didn't know anything about this until now. Mike Marshall is pretty popular out here in Yuma because he coaches the Yuma Scorpions...of course so was Jefferey Leonard. They say that punksoulbrutha is the Mike Marshall of Carbondale, Illinois.

I didn't see the Real Sports episode, but after doing a quick search, I came across this:

Yahoo Sports thing

There's a video, which I believe demonstrates the technique. It's almost like making a strong throw from the outfield. I'm not sure that the technique will ever be used though. It looks like it would be easier to read than most modern pitchers.

My opinion is that the guy is a smart man, with an impecable C.V. in terms of baseball and academics. But...The dude is nuts. He's convinced his pitchers not doing well is the result of a conspiracy, and not with his methods. He thinks Jeff Sparks never got a shot b/c he's been colluded against, and that his billions of walks per inning have nothing to do with it. He thinks everyone else is wrong and is stupidly endangering the children of America. I typed a longer post, but thought it was too inflammatory, so I'll just leave it at that.