Tom House, the throwing coach who caught Hank Aaron's 715th home run ball, discusses his baseball career and influence on modern pitching. He co-authored the best-selling pitching manual with Nolan Ryan and now coaches NFL quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Josh Allen on throwing mechanics.
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Here on this program and I see for the first time a guest in Studio an 8 year veteran of Major League Baseball, but the most respected throwing coach in Major league baseball and the NFL, Tom House is here on the Rich Eisen Show. Good to see you, Tom.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Pleasure to have you here. Before you get started, Brockman, go ahead, lay on Tom House, what you told me earlier today. Go for it. Oh, man.
When I was in Little League, so this was early 90s, I had the book that you had co written with Nolan Ryan about how to, how to pitch and all the exercises and stretches and, and things to do grips on certain, on certain pitches like. And I was kind of my guide because I was a pitcher back in.
The day and is that why he's not playing anymore? So, yeah.
How far did you go? How far did you go?
I mean, I played a year in college.
There you go.
So.
Well, the really cool thing is, is that that book is the number one selling pitch pitching Emanuel in the history of pitching books. And obviously it wasn't because of me, it was because it was Nolan Ryan's fastball is what we were talking about. So it was actually one of the better books. And it's from what I remember, Ted Williams book on hitting and that book on pitching are the 1 and 2 in baseball instruction.
Fantastic.
You got a good one in there.
It's great. I loved it.
But you don't have it for him though.
I don't have it with me.
It's probably somewhere in an attic somewhere.
My mom's house.
Okay, very good. All right, very good. So in your eight year career, I gotta ask you about this moment before we get to the here and now. What's going on with you and your career and the people that you have been counseling. Is it true you caught the Hank Aaron home run ball in Atlanta?
You've done your homework. Yes, sir.
You were in the bullpen, warming up in the bullpen.
Yeah, it was a. Basically it took a year to get to that point because he started chasing the record in 73 and it was a big to do that. Here we were sneaking up on, you know, a legend and 714 was the magic number. And as it turned out on that given day, we drew straws to see where we would be in the bullpen because the Atlanta Brave bullpen in Fulton County Stadium was behind the left field fence. So I got the straw that put me out to left center. Buzz Capper was one that had a dead center. And as luck would have it. Henry hit it. I was standing there. Everybody talks about what a great catch it was. If I would have stood still, it would have hit me in the forehead. So there was nothing magic there.
What do you mean? You were drawing straws? What are you talking.
What do you mean? Because the ball was going to be worth a lot of money. And I think by game time, the word I heard was 25 grand. That I think Sammy Davis Jr. Had come through the clubhouse before the game started and he wanted the ball in Henry to come out and do a show with him in Las Vegas. And 25,000 was the number I heard and remember in 1974, minimum big league salary was 12,000. And obviously I was way toward that number than the other guys on the team. But the bottom line was, or the good news was that was the highlight of my major league career. The bad news was that was the highlight of my major league career.
