How the AL West Was Won

The Texas Baseball Ranch is a little out of the way and a lot unusual, but the coach in charge might be leading a pitching revolution. Just ask the Astros newest star.

- Jason Fagone

 

He doesn’t have time for this. On a patch of dirt 50 miles north of Houston, Ron Wolforth’s baseball students are taking turns hurling a blue medicine ball at a green wall as hard as they can, which isn’t hard enough, and Wolforth doesn’t have time to keep pushing them, to “ride you like a pony until you get better,” he tells them. 

The ball weighs 4 pounds. He has calculated that if these guys can throw it 40 mph, holding it with both hands and releasing it over their heads like a soccer throw-in, they can throw a baseball 90 mph from the mound. And if they can’t throw a baseball 90 mph, they are never going to be great at pitching. And if they are never going to be great at pitching,well, that’s fine—most people are not great; most by definition are mediocre—but then why did they come here?