Hate Mail And Such

7/25/2008
Updated 9/15/2008

You would (or maybe wouldn't) be amazed at the volume of abuse that is directed my way. Some of it undoubtedly comes from people who think my works threatens their livelihood. However, when it comes to some of it I just can't figure out why people have such a problem with me. For example, here's an e-mail I received just yesterday.

Dear Mr. O'Leary,
     I just wanted to contact you to let you know that you have no business evaluating pitching and leaving your opinions online.  Who are you to evaluate anyone?  Have you ever had to try and get someone out in a College, Minor, or Major League game?  No, that is right, no you have not.  It is people like you who think you know everything that ruin the game of baseball.  You never learned the traditions of the game and the experiences that you gain from playing.  I don't care what you have learned from a book or researched.  If you have never experienced it and did it then keep your mouth shut.  Let the professionals do their job.  There are enough opinions out there for everybody we don't need yours.  Especially with your background.  You shouldn't even be allowed to coach college ball let alone brake down major league pitching.
     Stick with what you are experienced in and have actually done.
     Thanks for reading my constructive criticism.

Dan Barker

I find it funny that this guy thinks he's giving me constructive criticism but seems to have forgotten the "constructive" part.

 Instead, he just wants me to shut up.

My all-time favorite attack piece is one that Paul Nyman posted as his "Top 10 List of Internet 'Wannabe Baseball Instructional Gurus'....."

Chris O'Leary. A relative newcomer who posts on almost every and any Internet forum he can find. Another one of the tug on the heartstrings "you will throw your arm off" posters. Which is not surprising considering that he comes from the Mike Marshall "I will teach you how to throw without hurting yourself but don't expect to get noticed" religion. Has virtually no practical knowledge of the throwing process or how to develop high level throwing capabilities but is very good at putting together presentations. Again the danger of form versus function, i.e. we are only capable of seeing what were capable of seeing.

For the record, while I am officially just Number 3 on Paul Nyman's enemies list, he hasn't named Number 1 or Number 2, so until further notice I am Number 1.

Here's a pretty standard attack that was posted on Steven Ellis's Lets Talk Pitching web site....

O'Leary can't seem to resist making half-baked conclusions that completely transcend his powers of observation. That being said, he has made some very nice analytical treatments of various pitchers' mechanics so it's too bad that he hurts his own credibility on this and other forums with various psychic predictions about injury.
    The problem for O'Leary is that careful observation and data collection and scientifically responsible interpretation of the data do not have the same ***** luster for him as predicting who will, or will not, suffer injury.
     How about O'Leary providing special counsel to an MLB team? I doubt the implied gravitas of that claim. It's more probable that he sends his favorite MLB team lots of letters and they reply back each time with a polite "Thank you for your interest" form letter.

Lee Flippin

Here's another recent slam...

Chris O'Leary is a chameleon and an internet phony—a marketer and self-promoter with almost no baseball background beyond Little League coaching and an overactive imagination.

Lee Flippin

To be honest, I'm not sure what Lee Flippin's motivation is. He may be a Tom House apologist or he may just be old and grouchy.

Or maybe he's just an jerk.

Here's an e-mail I recently received from someone why read my analysis of the pitching mechanics of Tim Lincecum. I think he hates it that I presume to say anything about Lincecum.

who are you? tim lincecum is obviously better than you'll ever be. figure it out and stop pretending to know what your talking about. you say the same thing over and over about how "his elbows are higher than his shoulders". maybe in some cases. they know more than you and me so stop acting like you know because you don't or else you'd be Dave Reghetti. and if you're looking for a comeback stop now because nobody knows who you are.

Here's the latest piece of hate mail I've received. This is the first piece of negative feedback from someone who says they are a scout.

a checked out your site and I am sorry, but as a minor league baseball player who is about to become a scout, and a guy who as studied pitching mechanics for the last three years how can you sell your crap. U dont know the first thing about pitching and your (inverted) v theory is crap, I wish someone could stop guys like you from taking peoples money and ruining kids arms.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm ruining kids arms by teaching them to emulate the pitching mechanics of Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens. Maybe this idiot is a big fan of the work of Paul Nyman.