FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Elevate your pitching ability and lower your ERA! With The Softball Pitching Edge you can perfect your technique and develop elite-level skills." "This is the first book on fastpitch softball that dissects the pitching motion to correct your flaws through photographs and drawings of the correct mechanics. It shows you how to develop a variety of pitches, including the drop, the change-up, the rise, the curve, and the screwball. It goes beyond the basics to cover pre-motion presentation, stance, posture, timing, location, and speed." Author Cheri Kempf has helped train thousands of pitchers as the owner and pitching instructor at Club K, the largest indoor training facility for fastpitch softball players in the country. In The Softball Pitching Edge Kempf offers pitchers and their coaches the best technical advice and drills to take their pitching to a higher performance level. Use her book and get an edge on every hitter and batting lineup you face.

SYNOPSIS

Elevate your pitching ability and lower your ERA! With The Softball Pitching Edge you can perfect your technique and develop elite-level skills.

This is the first book on fastpitch softball that dissects the pitching motion to correct your flaws through photographs and drawings of the correct mechanics. It shows you how to develop a variety of pitches, including the drop, the change-up, the rise, the curve, and the screwball. It goes beyond the basics to cover pre motion presentation, stance, posture, timing, location, and speed.

Author Cheri Kempf has helped train thousands of pitchers as the owner and pitching instructor at Club K, the largest indoor training facility for fastpitch softball players in the country. In The Softball Pitching Edge Kempf offers pitchers and their coaches the best technical advice and drills to take their pitching to a higher performance level. Use her book and get an edge on every hitter and batting lineup you face.

About the Author

Cheri Kempf is owner and pitching instructor at Club K, the largest indoor training facility for female fastpitch softball players in the country. She has taught and trained thousands of athletes at Club K since 1991. Best known for her pitching expertise, she was a member of a five-person panel assembled by the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) and the United States Olympic Committee to develop universal standards by which to teach fastpitch pitching.

Kempf has more than 30 years of experience playing and coaching softball at all levels. In college, Kempf was a three-time All-American, an NAIA Collegiate national champion, and a National Tournament MVP in 1982 with a tournament ERA of 0.00. She then spent four seasons with the world-renowned Raybestos Brakettes, where her team was the ASA Women's Major Level national champion in 1991 and 1992. In 1992 Kempf joined the United States national team and went on to win the gold medal in the World Cup in Beijing, China.

Kempf has been inducted into the NAIA Collegiate Hall of Fame, the Missouri State ASA Hall of Fame, and the Missouri Western State College Hall of Fame. A member of the Women's Sports Foundation and the NFCA, she has done extensive motion analysis research with some of the top biomechanists in the country and has coached softball for four years at the NCAA Division I level. She also invented the Spin Right Spinner, a training device used to teach the correct mechanics of the pitching movement to softball and baseball pitchers, and an indoor three-on-three softball game called "RIPS," which is played with a specially designed cage and fitted to indoor competition.

Kempf lives in Hermitage, Tennessee. Her favorite leisure-time activities are boating, traveling, and visiting her family in Missouri.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

This instructional video is directed to fast-pitch coaches and pitchers of high school or college age and up. It is divided into three parts: mechanics, speed and control, and perfecting pitches. Cheri Kempf, a former college and national team pitcher who runs a softball training facility, developed this material and introduces each section. Biomechanical skills include upper- and lower-body positioning, posture, and timing. The speed and control section describes how to throw low and high and inside and outside pitches and also discusses strategy. The final segment shows grips and motions to use for the change-up, drop and rise, curve ball, and screwball. Throughout, female pitchers demonstrate drills to reinforce these skills. The pictures are crisp and show details clearly. The length and pacing of this video are just right for the material. Highly recommended for public libraries and college libraries with softball programs.-Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, BC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Cheri has captured cutting-edge information on fastpitch softball and has provided the instruction protocols to improve skills at all levels of competition.  — Dr. Tom House, founder of Bio-Kinetics

Cheri Kempf has spent more time seeking all available resources and applying them to her already excellent foundation of knowledge and experience than any other pitching coach I have met. Her students reap the benefits of her personal diligence and dedication to providing them with information that is nothing short of cutting-edge. Cheri now shares the results of that knowledge, experience, and research with you through The Softball Pitching Edge. I hope you enjoy it and appreciate its content as much as I did.  — Teresa Wilson, Head softball coach University of Washington