The History Behind Baseball’s Best Pitches
1. Fastball
Southpaw great Sandy Koufax once said, “The art of pitching is the art of instilling fear.” Quite simply, baseballs hurt, and fast baseballs hurt more. So it’s not surprising that flame-throwing fireballers intimidate. Think about it: a 90-mph fastball reaches home in just four-tenths of a second.
The basic fastball is the “four-seamer.” The pitcher puts his first and middle fingers half an inch apart across the horseshoe, or wide part of the seams. He then curls his other two fingers on the side and puts his thumb under the ball. He snaps his wrist straight down on release, like a whip, to give the ball some backspin and get the seams rotating. Because of the backspin, the blazing ball seems to rise as it burns by batters. (Actually, it just falls less than you’d expect.)
The “two-seam” fastball – a.k.a. the sinker – also features speed, but a different grip creates more, and different, movement. Here the pitcher puts his first and middle fingers running atop the two narrow seams. By applying pressure to one of these, he can get the ball to sink as it nears home. Some pitchers hold the two-seam fastball a little off-center, so that it “sinks” laterally. That’s called a cutter.
2. Split-fingered fastball
The split-fingered fastball came to its current prominence as the money pitch of famed 1970s reliever Bruce Sutter, who threw it pitch after pitch and dared batters to hit it. It looks the same as a regular fastball when it comes out of the pitcher’s hand and travels with a lot of velocity, too. But the devious splitter dives down as it nears home plate. Some have compared the movement to a ball rolling off a table.
Pitchers create this movement by throwing with the middle and index fingers split wide, resting on the outside edge of the ball’s seams. The forkball, a relative of the splitter and a mainstay of 1960s relief pitching, has been nearly replaced by Sutter’s pitch. Yet the two aren’t that different. Forkball pitchers just hold the ball a little higher between the fingers.
3. Curveball
Developed by W.A. “Candy” Cummings in 1867, the curveball has ended a lot of aspiring major-league hitters’ careers. A big-league curveball can veer as much as 17 inches by the time it reaches home. Most of that movement comes in the last quarter of the trip, too – in about one-sixth of a second. Considering that it takes a fifth of a second to swing a bat, batters must somehow “read” a curve early on.
To throw a curve, the pitcher grips the ball with his middle and index fingers across two seams at their widest point and cocks his wrist inward. He applies pressure with his middle finger and thumb, keeping his index finger loose. As he throws, he snaps his cocked wrist so that the back of his hand faces the catcher. This technique gives the ball plenty of topspin and some sidespin, too.
The natural rotation of a right-hander’s wrist snap causes the ball to spin down and away from right-handed batters, down and in on lefties. Southpaw curves spin down and in on right-handed batters, down and away on lefties. Some pitchers can actually throw a “reverse” curve – a screwball – by rotating their wrist inside out in a sort of corkscrew motion, so that the palm faces the catcher after release. Screwballs break the opposite way.
4. Slider
The devastating slider has more movement than a fastball but travels faster than a curve. Generally, the batter will think the pitch is a fastball, but the ball will veer just a little to the side when it reaches home. Since the pitch travels so fast and breaks so late, the batter has little time to react – even the slight sideways movement can throw him off. Result: weak pop-ups and ground balls (though a poorly thrown “hanging” slider will often end up in the seats).
To throw a slider, the pitcher puts his index and middle fingers a little off-center across the two widest seams and applies pressure with his thumb and middle finger. The release requires the pitcher to pull down slightly with his elbow at the last possible moment – and that can damage a pitcher’s arm.
5. Change-up
Good pitchers work hard to disrupt a batter’s timing. Even if a pitcher can throw 95 mph, if a batter sees enough heat, he’ll learn how to time it. Enter the change-up, which is essentially a slow fastball. Throwing the occasional change-up keeps the batter on his toes. If he’s anticipating a fastball, he’ll swing well ahead of the “off-speed” pitch. And if he’s not anticipating anything, he’s right where the pitcher wants him – reacting rather than anticipating.
The most common change-ups are the three-fingered and the circle. The pitcher holds the three-fingered change with his index, middle, and ring fingers atop the widest part of the seams and his pinky and thumb tucked under the ball. For the circle change, he makes a circle with his thumb and index finger on the ball’s side. In both cases, he has to throw the pitch as if were a fastball, maintaining the same delivery and arm speed. The grip is what takes heat off the ball.
And Then There’s the . . .
Knuckleball
Few pitchers can master the bobbing, veering, unpredictable knuckleball. The pitch’s name is a misnomer. Knuckleballers actually push the ball off the tips of their index, middle, and ring fingers, so that it has little or no spin. That lack of spin lets unpredictable air currents change the ball’s trajectory. Even the pitcher doesn’t know which way the slow-moving ball will break.
Such unpredictability can devastate batters. Famed hitting instructor Charlie Lau once said, “There are only two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.” Spitballs and other doctored pitches achieve the same effect with less mastery. With a little saliva or other slippery stuff on two fingers, the pitcher can make the ball squirt out of his hand with little or no spin.
