LJ baseball: In the House

By Ed Piper

Tom House, renowned throwing coach for NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady and Drew Brees, as well as major league pitchers, coos to his latest protégé, Joel Kuhnel, a Cincinnati Reds property: (making a kissing sound) "That's money," says the former pitcher from the visitors dugout at Muirlands Middle School after a wicked curveball that sinks low and away into the glove of La Jolla High catcher Arman Sanchez-Mohit.

"Only a major leaguer could hit that. It breaks too late for a minor leaguer, then he'd be guessing," says the pitching specialist. House converses with former Viking pitching coach Jake Grosz, who is following along. Grosz asks, "Who could hit that?" House: "Nobody. That's what I'm saying."

Nearing the end of a two-plus-hour workout, drenched in sweat in the cool of the La Jolla late afternoon, Kuhnel, a 6'5" behemoth carrying 275 pounds--"He was at 285 three weeks ago," brags House--is being tuned for his imminent Spring Training camp with the big club in Goodyear, Arizona, beginning in a week.

In another lover's coo, the 70-year-old calls out to his pitcher, "Are you having fun, sweetheart?"

Kuhnel has repeatedly answered House's question, "Are you tired?" with "No, I'm just not trusting having my left hand to be here (out front of his body and at shoulder height), instead of here (pulled in and down, forsaking power)." Or earlier, "No, I just can't picture it" (what House has taught him in eight previous workouts spread over three weeks).

Finally, verging into his third hour of strenuous, demanding one-on-one direction, he allows, "Yeah, I'm getting tired."

"He's throwing 90, 91 (mph), on no adrenaline, after an hour's (more like two) workout," House answers to a reporter's question.

The benefit of having such a high-level pitching guru train clients on-site at the Vikings' complex during their preseason workouts is obvious to several people: As Grosz articulates it, "(House) is working with a professional pitcher on the field. He's helping a catcher (bungee-cord pulling with Sanchez-Mohit after the Kuhnel session to make the high school junior faster in his throws). All the members of the team are around, and they are seeing the future Major Leaguer's workout."

Meanwhile, the Vikings' 2018 edition is seated in the home dugout. Head coach Gary Frank, who served as batboy for House's Rangers when they played the Angels in Anaheim, is fortifying his players' psyches, just as Tom House, who has a doctorate in Sports Psychology from USIU (now Alliant University), gets into his trainees' heads: "Don't get discouraged. You're going to have that drop in confidence. When you do, you're going to respond to it. Don't let your opponents determine how you're going to do. You're going to outwork your opponents."

Echoes of Tom House. House to Kuhnel: "What does GFF stand for?" "Go Friggin' Fast." At another point: "Who's in charge of you?" "I am."

Meanwhile, the long-time hurling coach is pitching science and mechanics derived from decades of perfecting methods.

"By the way, physics-wise," House says in an aside to a reporter during his one-on-one session, "You can generate the force of four times body weight on level ground. You can generate six times body weight on the mound. It took us two decades to figure that out."

He has numerous aphorisms and acronyms that he peppers his instruction with. "90/9" is an exercise with hand barbells the coach has Kuhnel practice, in which arms bend at 90 degrees in front of the body, with repetitions. Scissor-motions with the hands, kind of like a hand-jive, exercises with the barbells in an extended pitching-delivery stride, and many other moves follow in rapid succession--part of a regimen that the tutoree can take with him to Spring Training, and use in his offseason workouts.

Regarding the many hours Frank's father, Howard, describes of House pitching batting practice to a young Gary Frank, a former second baseman at La Jolla who went on to the pros, the guru says, "There's nothing that beats quality repetition and passion. That's what Gary had."

The younger Frank starred as a left-handed-hitting second baseman, and he wants to continue to pass on his expertise and experience to the varsity teams he coaches for his alma mater. House's insights and yearly visits to the Muirlands complex augment that coaching.

"How was your knee on that one?" the septuagenarian queries his tutoree Kuhnel. "You see how it was out of place. I'm being a (jerk) now." House, just shy of his 71st birthday, wearing sunglasses in the descending light at the 5 o'clock hour on the Vikings' diamond, is pointing out minute details in his pitcher's mechanics from 60 feet or more away.

"(Joel) is getting aligned for what he needs in Spring Training," he explains to the visitor. "He has great coaches. He has a great organization (the Reds). We are always a complement to what they do."

Further, the former Braves reliever says, "My role is to figure out what he's in need of in addition to what he's getting."

"Our STAT is: Screen, Test, Assess to determine how we're going to Train the pitcher."

"When (Kuhnel) first got evaluated, it wasn't just a bad habit, but a strength issue" (in his pitching motion).

"Our STAT is for nerve and muscle," he elaborates. "For muscle, you work heavy--more than a five-ounce baseball. For nerve, you work lighter than 5 ounces. We have exercises for each."

"You saw me measure the scapular and look at fingernails last year," the guru reminds his visitor. "That is the initial evaluation."

Working his pitcher through four foot positions around the rubber--torque tosses, crossovers, step-behinds, and narrow stance--House comments, "Nolan Ryan (Hall-of-Famer he trained on the Texas Rangers) did this every game before innings (with the eight warm-up pitches he was allotted): two to three step-behinds," and others of the four techniques.

Advice to Kuhnel, who is firing bullets to the somewhat-awed, teenaged Sanchez-Mohit: "When you throw three off-speed pitches, always mix in a fastball. The rest of your life, do that."