Royals pitching advisor Fischer shares wisdom of 60 years in baseball
Absolute No 1: Don’t bang your heel.
SURPRISE, Ariz. | They call Bill Fischer “Walking Wisdom” around here, which makes the guy laugh. Walking Wisdom, eh? Yeah, they should have been there that day in ’63, 11th inning, when ol’ Walking Wisdom pitched for the Kansas City A’s and decided to throw a bleeping fastball to Mickey Mantle. The Mick blasted it off of the bleeping right-field facade at Yankee Stadium. They called it 620 feet. They called it 734 feet. Whatever, it was bleeping far.
“Of course if Mickey Mantle was playing at Yankee Stadium today,” Fischer says, “with the bleeping fences in, with center field at 400 feet, he’d hit 800 bleeping homers.”
Bleep. You can probably tell that Bill Fischer does not exactly buy into the walking wisdom thing. First off, Fish ain’t walking too good. He’s 77; they got him a golf cart to scoot around in as the Kansas City Royals’ senior pitching advisor. Senior is right. Fish has been in baseball for 60 years; only Don Zimmer has been puttering around the game full time for that long. Zim’s written two books about it.
Fish hasn’t written any books, and he will tell you why. It’s because in 60 years as a starting pitcher, reliever, scout, coach, guru, psychologist, coordinator, babysitter and patriarch, he’s learned that this baseball deal ain’t that bleeping complicated. It comes down to four things. The four absolutes. People you know, people like Roger Clemens, John Schuerholz, Tom Seaver, Dayton Moore, lots of others, they’ll tell you that if you follow Bill Fischer’s four absolutes of pitching, everything else falls into place.
Of course, others will tell you that Fish don’t know what the bleep he’s talking about. That’s all right. Fish says that some stupid sons of guns in this game of baseball also will tell you that the sun rises in the West.
Don’t bang your heel. That’s the first absolute. Young pitchers get hurt all the time. They blow out their arms, their elbows, their shoulders, they chip bones, they tear tendons, and why? Fish will tell you why; he’s been in this game since Harry Truman was in office. It’s because these numskulls wind up, throw as hard as they can, and on their follow-through they bang the heel of their front foot into the ground, BAM, all that force rattles through them, shakes up the arm, a mini-earthquake every pitch.
“It’s like driving 100 mph and then slamming the brakes as hard as you can,” Fish says. “You think that’s good for the car? You know any car mechanics gonna tell you to do that? Bleep, I’m just talking common sense here.”
As he talks common sense, two Royals coaches walk by. It’s physical day at camp — Fish has already had his physical.
“Hey baby, how’d you check out?” one coach asks Fish.
“They told me to take two days off and quit,” Ol’ Walking Wisdom says.
•••
Absolute No. 2: Throw four-seam fastballs.
Fish’s first day in pro baseball was at a Chicago White Sox tryout camp in Wisconsin in 1948. Red Ruffing, the gritty old pitcher who gutted his way into the Hall of Fame despite losing four toes in a mining accident, was running things. Red liked the kid’s style, offered him 150 bucks a month to report to Wisconsin Rapids. “No bonus, no nothing, that’s not a lot of bleeping money,” Fish says. He never hesitated.
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To reach Joe Posnanski, call 816-234-4361 or send e-mail to jposnanski@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
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