Bill Bethea, owner of Power Pitching and Hitting, located in West Windsor, develops baseball players of all ages of abilities. He has transferred his passion for helping young baseball players learn how to be stronger into a career.
Bill has played baseball his entire life. He is a self-described “below-average little leaguer. I was only allowed to pitch one time when I was 9, and I walked 11 batters!” Through the help of wonderful coaches over the years, Bill became a professional pitcher.
Bill explains “my problem was that people all around me would tell me that I should be throwing harder, but no one could communicate to me how; so I decided to seek out the answers for myself. I started researching pitching ‘gurus’ and picking their brains. The problem I found was that everyone had different ideas, which made it all the more confusing.
“After my junior year I contacted a pitching coach in Arizona and sent him a video of me pitching. He sent back a reply stating that I had three major flaws that restricted my potential and provided drills to correct them.”
During his senior year of college, Bill got the call to join the Elmira Pioneers — an independent minor-league team at the time (Red Sox double-A). Life didn’t follow the course he had hoped, and he was released. He had a little more professional ball experience, but found “at 23 I was considered too old to be a Major League prospect.”
Upon returning home “I realized the following: I did something that many kids only dream of … I played professional baseball! Granted, it wasn’t the major leagues, but it was something to be proud of. I then thought to myself, ‘if I only knew how to train like I did the past two years when I was in high school or younger, then maybe I would have had a shot to go further.’ The light bulb went off!
“I decided not to pursue the dream of playing professionally, but to focus on helping young players learn at an earlier age what I had learned so late.”
This summer Bill is looking forward to the 13th season of Power Pitching and Hitting baseball camp. He is very excited about the velocity display that is new this year. Pitchers will be able to see their speed throw velocity displayed instantly.
They also have Big Field Camp, which is a great way to transition young players to prepare them from the size of Little League field to the big field. Campers will learn pitching, hitting, fielding, catching, bunting, base running, proper conditioning, and arm care. They will play live games every day. They play at Community Park and Cuffani Field, as well as in the West Windsor Little League Indoor Facility. Full and half day camps are available. They run from Monday, June 22, to Thursday, August 27. Visit the website at powerpitchingandhitting.com for more details.
Now Bill is excited about another new venture: he is Stack.com’s baseball expert. Stack.com is a fitness-based online sports magazine.
Power Pitching and Hitting, Box 241, Plainsboro. powerpitchingandhitting.com or pphbaseball.com. E-mail: info@powerpitchingandhitting.com.
