Jim Zorn is not afraid to try anything if it means keeping his quarterbacks in the game. When he was with the Detroit Lions, Zorn said one of his quarterbacks, Charlie Batch, “was the worst slider I’ve ever seen in my life.“ So, Zorn went to a toy store, bought a slip-and-slide, and used it at practice. He also asked Frank Tanana, who had pitched for the Detroit Tigers, to come to his practices to show his Batch and the other quarterbacks how to slide.
Some might not remember Tanana. He played for 21 years in the majors. He was a fire-balling left-hander who began his career with the California Angels. As he got older, he lost his fastball—he also might have had an arm injury in there somewhere—and became a very effective curve-ball pitcher. He still got his share of strikeouts. And for all you fantasy baseball players with legends teams—if there isn’t a fantasy legends league, there should be— Tanana was 240-236, struck out 2,733, walked 1,255 and had a career ERA of 3.66. The man threw 4,188 innings in his career. Imagine what he’d be worth on the open market today.
Anyway, Zorn liked the idea of having someone other than him show his players the proper sliding techniques.
When Matt Hasselbeck arrived in Seattle, Zorn discovered that Hasselbeck wasn’t at sliding to avoid tackles. It doesn’t seem like it would be all that hard, but not everyone is naturally adept at throwing himself to the ground in a manner that doesn’t cause harm to other parts of his body. Hasselbeck, Zorn said, had a habit of going down on one side of his body and banging his shoulder against the ground. That’s a bad habit for a quarterback to have.
So Zorn brought out the slip and slide. He also did two other things. He told Hasselbeck that whenever he went into a slide to grab the ball with both hands and keep it in front of him. That helped Hasselbeck stay square when he hit the ground instead of rolling to one side.
Zorn also brought in John Olerud, who at the time was playing first base for the Seattle Mariners. Don’t know if you remember Olerud. He was a pretty good hitter. What I remember about him is hat he played first base wearing a batting helmet, a helmet without an earflap of course.
ESPN did a story on Zorn’s slip-and-slide teaching method, complete with Olerud on sight.
Here’s a link to the piece http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfGZsPLDkY8. It’s actually pretty funny.
What’s interesting to me is that Mike Holmgren, the Seahawks head coach, was willing to let ESPN get all wild and wacky with the Seahawks players. Not only that, Holmgren was a willing participant.
The reason I find that interesting is that Holmgren has a reputation for being tough on quarterbacks and tough on assistant coaches. He’s very demanding of both and doesn’t have much tolerance for poor performances. On the other hand, he’s had a very stable coaching staff during his nine years, now going on 10, in Seattle.
Zorn said we’d see the slip-and-slide during the Redskins training camp if the quarterbacks aren’t sliding properly—Zorn’s big on quarterbacks avoiding hits because nothing good happens when quarterbacks decide to become running backs and decide to take on tacklers while going full speed.
Even if the quarterbacks are sliding properly, I think we’ll see the slip-and-slide. Zorn wants to break up the drudgery of training camp, and the Redskins have a long training camp ahead of them. They have to report a week earlier than usual because they’re playing in the Hall of Fame game.
That means they’ll come into camp around July 20. The first regular-season game will not be until the Thursday or Sunday after Labor Day. That is a loooooong training camp. There probably will be days when the offensive linemen and defensive linemen hope Zorn brings out the slip-and-slide so they can get some relief from the heat and monotony of banging into each other.
You might even see some sports writers hitting the slip-and-slide. Often, the players are more than willing to “help” the writers get involved in such things. We’ll see what happens. It could be interesting and maybe even entertaining.
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