Making Every Pitch Count

With a mere two hundred words,Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the gifted American poet, changed the lives ofcountless numbers of young people by composing his inspiring poem, THE PSALM OF LIFE. Ken Beardslee, in this his sixth book, believes he can changethe lives of thousands of young baseball pitchers with his latest effort, MAKING EVERY PITCH COUNT. It is a bookof limited pages, easily understood, and in the long run quality alwaystriumphs over quantity. With the lively baseball, the much smaller strike zone,and the lowering of the mound, all present day pitchers are working with a verynarrow window to success. With new approaches, and tested theories of his own,the author presents a program that will vastly improve any pitcher'sperformance. The author's record as an amateur and professional pitcher, andhis deep experience as a big league scouting supervisor for the PittsburghPirates, speaks for itself. At Vermontville High School in Michigan,he set seven state pitching records. In addition he holds the national recordfor strikeouts per batters faced during a high school season, and career. Inprofessional baseball before being injured, he had a seventy five percentwinning percentage in the New York Yankee organization.MAKING EVERY PITCH COUNT breaks new ground for pitchers of allages.

In high school Ken Beardslee set seven national pitching records. He stillholds the best percentage of strikeouts for a single high school season, andfor an entire high school career (for one season, 19 strikeouts for every 21batters faced. For a career, 18 strikeouts for every 21 batters faced). Noother high school pitcher in the nation has been able to match those feats. Allof Ken's high school pitching records may be found in the yearly edition of theNational High School Sports Record Book, published by the National Federationof State High School Associations in Kansas City, Missouri. As a pitcher in the New YorkYankee organization, Ken won a total of 64 games while losing but 24. Risingfrom Class D to AAA classification in a little over three years, he setstrikeout records in two different minor leagues.When his active playing careerwas ended by an injury, he joined the Pittsburgh Pirate scouting departmentwhere he remained for over twenty years. He became a scouting supervisorhandling all scouting operations in the Midwest.Besides his writing, Ken pursuesan active role in public speaking, appearing before large audiences in Michiganand Indiana.