Not satisfied with the world’s shortest shorts, “exercise” tights thinner than body paint, all-body tattoos, the loudest cut-out auto mufflers, pick-up trucks the size of Sherman tanks, and the worlds biggest heaviest bunker busting bombs and the huge planes to carry them? US excesses have now reached down into the only place where old guys used to feel comfortable with their reactionary conservatism—watching a ball game and falling into the old time magic world of MLB!
But today, the “change is good, even if it ain’t” gang have had their way on the magic green diamond. The good old curve ball is almost gone from the game. All season long one MLB team threw curveballs only 6% of the total pitches thrown. Once the game at the plate was: fastball, curve balls (and sliders), and changeups.
Today the fastball has taken over. The four seamer is the fastest and most popular pitch thrown. Nolan Ryan’s 108 mph pitch started the trend (was it really) way back in 1977 ? Apparently you can teach any good player to throw this ball so fast it gives the hitter only milliseconds to react. An eye blink is 500 milliseconds long. (That is 500/1000 of a second.) It takes a hot fastball only 400 milliseconds to go the 60.5 feet to the plate. Faster than an eye blink. The ability to measure these ball speeds and use them in the game radically changed pitching the baseball. As happened in “outside the MLB" world, technology has taken over from long training, skill, experience, wisdom and sophistication of a really skilled pitcher..
The what happens in the 60.5 feet from mound to home plate —is the real game—and it always revolved around the fascinating interplay on threat (batter) and deception(pitcher).
How the pitcher and batter first square off to evaluate each other begins the encounter then the real game begins to determine who is better, wiser, more skilled and in the end wins or loses the encounter at the plate.
The real drama of the game was always at the plate. Like the deadly Spanish bull ring melodrama of deception (with a red cape and graceful ballet moves) between matador and bull, baseball achieves that same high drama too! But omits the blood stained sand..oh perhaps the sand may be stained—but with tobacco juice!.
How is the batter deceived? The variable arsenal of the pitcher kept the game interesting, and brought high drama. The pitcher’s use of psychology, then like the matador trains his opponent to expect one thing then delivers something different: position of the ball in the strike zone,, low vs high, too close vs too far away from the batter, the dangerous head ball, all this plus the fastball AND curveball were all part of the pitcher’s arsenal. The fastball alone may be very hard to hit but players can learn, to hit a fastball. In the end the pitcher's job is to deceive!
The curveball’s unique topspin and down movement throws off a hitter’’s timing. If the hitter is expecting a fastball, the curveball can work to advantage. since both pitches look alike Thus when the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand that 100 milliseconds of miscue means a curveball will be at the plate and impossible for the batter to alter his reaction.
Have modern fans lost sight of the intricacies of the game? Are they all simply focused on externals? Let's leave baseball alone!
If the old way works why change it?
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