Yesterday I went down to the Sports Arena in St. James to check out Week 2 of the Seven Tool Catching Clinic run by former Milwaukee Brewers catching prospect Charles Galiano (Commack 2012). It featured 48 high school age catchers running through various timed stations with music blaring in the background. It is all by design from Galiano, who craved the high-intensity atmosphere when he began the clinic back in 2017.
Over the past couple years, Galiano has slowly morphed into more of a roving instructor role during the clinic, trusting his go-to assistant Billy Reidel as his right-hand man. He did not hesitate to say he fully trusted him due to his background as a college catcher, teacher and JV baseball coach.
The stations included pitching framing, blocking, throws to second and turning double plays (home to first). The high-intensity allows for maximum amount of reps while also cultivating a competitive environment in which there’s no downtime.
One quick note on the pitching machine (nicknamed Godzilla.) It was devised by Galiano and it is a pretty incredible site. Below is a video of it.
The Godzilla pitching machine in action pic.twitter.com/FU4b27IXZo
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) December 13, 2020
Some of the individuals that really stood out was Army-commit Jack Quinlan (Sayville 2022) and Michael Zeis (John Glenn 2022), but the overall product is high quality, which is the biggest takeaway.
Lastly, it was nice to see some familiar faces as instructors at the clinic. In addition to Reidel, there was also Chicago White Sox prospect Tyler Osik, Toronto Blue Jays prospect Patrick Cantwell, T.J. Riccio, Matthew Reistetter and Monroe catcher Don Wille.
