Here's something I've been thinking of after doing some baseball camps lately:

1. Why does it seem like pitchers from the Dominican and other countries throw harder? Genetics?

Simply put- they aren't over coached. They pick up the ball and throw it. Here in America we teach pitchers to have pretty deliveries instead of effective deliveries. We teach balance points to the death. We have for the most part taken the athlete out of the pitchers.

Here's a question? Why does an outfielder tilt his shoulder back to throw it 300 feet but we teach pitchers to be balanced and not tilt back? You cannot throw the ball 90+ mph without a big enough leg kick and tilting back. Then we take our kids arms, stop them in the middle of it and say you need to here instead. Do you think stopping a kids arm in the middle of throwing is going to teach him to speed it up? Then we teach our kids that we have to be in perfect fielding positions...good luck trying to get your kid to finish his delivery, throw it 90 mph, and field it like Kenny Rogers.

All these pretty, balanced, little deliveries and we still haven't learned from guys with the quirkiest of deliveries (Nomo, Dontrelle Willis, El Duque, etc.) that know they're only chance of succeeding is deception?

Advice...if you don't truly know how the body works to throw a baseball hard and efficient, throw your kid in the outfield where he'll have no choice but to use his body to throw a baseball hard.

2. Why do hitters from other countries seem to be such strong pure hitters?

Simply put- they literally are not allowed to walk in little leagues. They know they have to hit to "get off the island." Now I'm not taking away the importance of knowing the strike zone but you're not making it anywhere in baseball until you can hit. I can go on all day about the mechanics of hitting and pitching but I can't emphasize enough that you can't take the athlete of the player. That's really what we're doing. We're turning our players into inefficient robots.

Until this is realized and preached, expect to see your kids and the rest of America lag behind the upcoming kids from other countries.