Medical students are taught an ancient motto that says "First of all, do no harm." (Hippocrates.)

This is a good way to start any discussion about training pitchers. It is easy to destroy a young pitcher's self-confidence, or to injure a young pitcher's arm, sometimes permanently.

Just as with hitters, a few kids will just be naturally good at pitching. If you are lucky enough to get one or two of those, leave them alone. Let them pitch their own way, as long as they don't hurt their arms. Don't try to re-train them according to conventional wisdom that you may read here or elsewhere.

Every young ballplayer wants to pitch. It is the most glamorous job on the baseball team. As a pitcher, you stand all alone on the mound, with all eyes on you. Nothing happens until the pitcher throws the ball.

In the younger age levels, some managers will try to teach some pitching skills to every single player on the baseball team. This is because the leagues usually have rules saying that a ballplayer may not pitch for at least two days after pitching in a game. It is easy to run out of pitchers on a weekend. A prudent manager will have a lot of back-up pitchers in reserve. Plus, kids love pitching practice.

The pitching movements are too complicated to describe in a book or a web site, even with photos.

The first goal is to build a little familiarity and confidence. Let your young pitcher stand on the mound and pitch a few balls to you. It is best to do this in a relatively private setting, not in front of his teammates, siblings or parents.

The next goal is accuracy. Make a few home plates out of heavy cardboard or masonite. Paint them white. Make a target showing the strike zone out of cardboard, paper, or plywood. Give your ballplayer a bucket of about 20 baseballs and let have your ballplayer let fly. Do not let your ballplayer throw more than about 20 pitches per practice session. Some managers will disagree with this, but it is better to be safe than sorry. It is easy to hurt a young pitcher's arm.

Once your pitcher is getting more than half of the pitches in the strike zone, you can begin to work on speed. Stick to overhand fastballs at first, maybe later work in some change-ups.

A change-up is thrown exactly like a fastball, only without snapping the wrist at the very end. This reduces the ball's speed considerably. To the batter, it looks like a fastball is about to be released, but the ball comes in slowly instead. It throws your timing off.

Stay away from fancy pitches like curveballs, knuckleballs, sliders, etc. even though most new pitchers will dearly want to try them immediately. They can and will hurt their arms that way. Don't let them do it. When they sneak some in anyway, ( and they will ) make them run a few laps around the field.

Once your pitcher has developed acceptable speed and accuracy, It is time to develop some poise. Have your pitcher take the mound, and pitch to your catcher while you call the strikes and balls. When your pitcher gets comfortable and is getting more than half of the balls in the strike zone, bring in some batters.

After your pitchers are comfortable throwing against real batters, teach them that umpires will make mistakes, and will occasionally call a perfectly good strike a "ball."

Teach them to shake that off, and not to start arguing with the umpire or acting up on the mound. This is part of building poise.

Even good pitchers can freeze up when the pressure is on.
Part of building poise is to teach your pitchers to just concentrate on putting the ball where the catcher asks, every single time, regardless of the score, or of the count, or of who is watching in the stands. Teach your pitchers to forget about all that stuff. Let the manager worry about it.

During practice, have your pitcher imagine that it is the first pitch of the game with no score yet.
Have the teammates be quiet.
Have your pitcher throw a few balls that way.

Now have the pitcher imagine that it's the bottom of the ninth**, with a tied score, bases loaded, and a full count.

Have the teammates scream, whistle, and yell.
Have your pitcher throw a few balls that way.

(** Actually, most youth league games last only 6 or 7 innings.)

When your pitcher throws the same way under both conditions, you will have built some serious poise.

You will also have imparted a valuable character trait that will serve your young pitcher well throughout his or her life: how not to "choke" under pressure.

There is one more poise building trick that is good to do if you have time:

During practice, have teammates or siblings clown around and yell at the pitcher from the dugout and from the stands. In particular, have them try to make the pitcher laugh.

Your young pitcher will "crack up" laughing at first, but will eventually become bored by, and inured to, all the distractions. Your pitcher is now ready.

In general, it is best to have your new pitchers start off by pitching only one or two innings against weak teams, in pre-season, practice games. This builds confidence.

The temperature-sensitive pitchers: Some ballplayers will pitch well on cold days, and will veritably "wilt" on hot days. Others will be totally inept on cold days but will come into their own on hot days. Keep this in mind and adjust your pitching roster according to the weather. This also builds confidence.

After your pitchers have developed some skill, poise, and experience, it is time to teach them to hit the corners of the strike zone, sticking to fastballs and change-ups.

In a competitive league, it will be tempting to overwork your better pitchers. If you do this, you may win a few more games at the cost of ruining a young pitcher's arm forever.