Pitching

When I was a kid, all I wanted to do with my life was play baseball. I was a big sports fan (still am, if you can believe it) but baseball ruled the roost. I lived and breathed the game. At a young age I could tell you more about baseball history, rules and statistics than a lot of MLB analysts. Unfortunately for me, my skill for the game lay in strategy and not physical prowess. I couldn't hit a damn ball to save my life. I wasn't a terribly good fielder either. Typically, I spent my days riding the pine. The one thing I was always good at though was throwing. I was most often relegated to right field, which is where they typically confine the least talented of all the ball players at that age. What did I discover about myself in right field? Well, I had a lot of hustle even if I wasn't very quick to the ball, I was prone to trying to make spectacular catches (usually a failure) in an effort to somehow distinguish myself as a ballplayer, and, most importantly, I had a cannon for an arm. A big, nasty, mean, accurate ten year old fireball thrower. I could hit the cut-off man with pinpoint accuracy, I could one-hop a laser guided shot to home plate whenever some over zealous kid tried to sneak his ass home.

Let's review. I couldn't really field, I was a terrible batter, I could throw hard accurately. Why the hell wasn't I a pitcher? Unfortunately, in little league you often run into the problem of "coach's kid gets the best positions." What that meant more often than not was the coach's kid got to be the pitcher. Even though I had that aforementioned cannon, even though my own father had been a good fastball pitcher in his youth and could have taught me a ton about mechanics (all you need at ten is a good heater), they never put me on the mound. I'm not ashamed to admit that it still bothers me a bit to this day.

How fitting it is then, after all these years and all this geektastic self-discovery, that I would enter a field that required I be a "pitcher" to get work. Sure, its an editor instead of a batter and a synopsis instead of a hard white ball, but I'm finally a pitcher.

So my question for all of you guys this week is this; how do you pitch? Some of you have pitches out there right now awaiting critique, some of you have sold pitches and are currently working and some of you are like me, just starting out and trying to determine the best manner in which to sell your work. So what do you do? What advice do you have for myself (and my readers) about putting together the best possible pitch and reeling in those editors?

Batter up!