By Vic Braden

Once I saw a photo of myself as a kid trying to look cool on the serve. My pose seemed to resemble the normal “trophy look.” Having played a ton of baseball in my youth, I wondered why this strange pose would generate amazing power. I also wondered why more baseball pitchers didn’t use this system to strike out batters.

In the early 1960s, I talked Dodger baseball pitcher Don Drysdale into being a subject in a research project. I wanted to see how much information a student could take before “information overload” entered the picture. The deal was that we would film the entire lesson and he would stay on the court for eight hours. We would then discuss what he had learned at dinner. The eight-hour lesson took its toll as Don fell asleep at the restaurant table and we didn’t get everything on tape. I especially wanted to discuss the blazing speed Don had on his serve when I suggested he try to use the same motion when serving that he used on the mound. Later, while viewing the film for the twentieth time, I discovered something about the serve that has helped me teach young students to achieve great speed.

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