The fastest baseball pitch by a starting pitcher was just recorded at 103.7 mph. Relief pitchers have done better with the current record from 2010 at 105.8 mph.
There is another important sports pitch this week. Starting on June 11, 2026, the FIFA World Cup with 48 teams from around the world competing in Football/Soccer. They will be playing on a field called a pitch. It’s not just a grass field with weeds such as our children play on. It’s a highly engineered and cared for surface.
“The perfect football pitch at the 2026 World Cup is not simply grass. It is a combination of agriculture, temperature control, engineering and logistics.
A World Cup pitch must withstand studs, sliding tackles and the elements at least four times during the month-long tournament. It must drain water within minutes and feel the same for matches in Miami, Vancouver, Mexico City and New Jersey, venues with sharply different climates.”
You can see some details and visuals at
Now, let’s turn to making a pitch to get something. What was your first “pitch?” Might it have been an appeal to Mom and Dad to get a puppy? Kid’s seem to know intrinsically how to pitch Mom versus how to pitch Dad. Either of them might turn you away after the first pitch and ask or demand that you include a few items for them, such as a promise to take care of the feeding and walking, even in the pouring rain or heavy snow. Maybe you had to talk about how it was going to improve your accountability and discipline?
Now, when was your last pitch and what was it for? Was it trying to sell your spouse on the purchase of something for the home, a new gadget, a vacation, a weekend away with your friends? How well did it go?
The best leaders and sales people know how to pitch a product or service or idea. They are able to speak in the listeners language and appeal to their emotions as well as having a solid and logical reasoning. They can adapt to body language, objections, and can parry their words. I call it verbal fencing.
Engineers have great ideas, but don’t always have the capabilities just described. Alan Alda of MASH fame, started the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science (https://www.aldacenter.org/professional-development/ ) when he realized this problem. It might be an easy course for an actor or comedian accustomed to improvisation, but not so easy for a buttoned-up logic-driven engineering type.
Yet, pitch we all must do and more often than we think. You may need to pitch for money for your company to get a startup investment, a bank loan, or get a buyer to take over your company at an acceptable price and terms. You may need to pitch the board on a new idea. You may need to pitch your employees to accept some new challenges or benefits changes.
Whether you are a founder of a company looking for your first tranche of money or a product strategy leader in a global, multi-billion dollar company, you can learn something from those that pitch regularly. One quote I read is, “Founders who wait until the pitch often prepare too late.” Even Jeff Bezos of Amazon is famous for his short, well-crafted pitches. Whether you are a middle school child putting together a poster for some event, or a highly educated professor putting together a poster presentation for a technical event, it has many similarities to a short pitch.
If you want some ideas, let’s talk https://calendly.com/paul-ba.
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