By ISG Baseball
The recently concluded ISG Baseball Clinic in Paderborn, Germany was a huge success. Held in conjunction with the Deutsche Baseball Verband, the three day affair was attended by over 100 coaches from all corners of Germany. Many of the coaches in attendance work with school age, youth and junior players so the emphasis of the clinic was growing the game and keeping players involved in practices.
Former MLB power-hitting outfielder Ernie Young, who played portions of 8 seasons in the bigs and an amazing total of 14 years in AAA baseball, headlined the clinic and covered presentations on hitting, outfielding and baserunning. Vision expert Ryan Harrison, who with his father Bill serves as a consultant to various MLB teams, shared cutting edge training techniques and insights into getting players to focus more clearly.
Team leader Tom O’Connell, no stranger to German baseball having spent 17 years as an envoy coach there, presented on the future of baseball training covering the new directions that coaches are using in training.
Several top German Coaches – Alper Bozkurt, Georg Bull, Phillip Howard, Martin Brunner, Matt Kemp, Stephan Mueller, Tom Gillespie (Pittsburgh Pirates) – covered topics from training throwing and infield play to creating a culture for success. A special treat was the opening presentation by former Dutch National Coach Brian Farley who shared his formula for winning the World Cup.
The clinic was held in the beautiful Ahorn Sportpark, an Olympic style training center which features one of the few indoor infields in Europe.