Time Out
“I shall call it everything that is damanable,” fumed Walt Whitman.
Whitman had just heard about something called “the curve ball,” and couldn’t believe that “the fellow who pitches the ball aims to pitch it in such a way the batter cannot hit it.” The old poet loved baseball, and for him, pitching was meant to facilitate hitting. To do otherwise would be undemocratic! Not only was the curveball politically incorrect, Whitman found it morally reprehensible that pitchers would try to get batters out and would stoop to deception to do so.
At its best, the curveball is pure deception.
Three Outs
Pitching today for the Giants is one of the great curveball pitchers of our time, Barry Zito. He’s also one of modern baseball’s great tragedians. Few have risen and fallen so fast. I know you’re thinking of a hitting Barry, but he’s still in the clear, whereas pitching Barry long ago admitted his failure. He begged forgiveness and promised to do better. Finally, this year, he began to redeem that pledge. Suddenly he discovered, or rediscovered, his lust for defeating other men in competition. Better than music!
But he has stumbled, and in his last two outings, he has stumbled badly. He has consistently fallen behind hitters; his fastball has been indifferent, his slider dull, and his curve, when it broke, fooled nobody for long. And when it didn’t break?
Throwing a mix of moderate fastballs and breaking curves, Zito gets Ruben Tejada on a fly and left-fielder Jason Bay on strikes. He then throws five consecutive fastballs to All-Star David Wright, working the count to 3-2. Fans start clapping. Wright digs in, looking for that curveball. Zito throws a changeup instead, and Wright goes down swinging.
Six Outs
The Mets last played baseball in a steambath called summer in New York City, where temperatures soared into triple digits. Will the fog blowing over Mission Bay turn their fireballs to snowballs? Will their hands freeze waiting for Zito’s curveball to crawl back home?
The slower Zito’s curve, the better it bends and breaks. Zito’s trademark curveball is called a 12-6 as it breaks vertically. Legend has it Zito’s 12-6 curveball used to break 12 inches. Superstar Alex Rodriguez said not to bother looking for it because you weren’t going to see it.
Eleven Outs
Did somebody say double play? Jon Niese just threw Juan Uribe nice slow curve ball that dropped into the abyss at Uribe’s feet. He managed to get a piece of it, hitting a weak grounder to Ruben Tejada and there are two outs.
The curveball will do that. Not only the most elegant of pitches, it restores a sense of “democracy” to the game by inducing ground balls, allowing the infielders show their stuff and make the outs.
Twenty-One Outs
Tejada opens the fourth with the first hit off Zito. After Zito strikes out Wright for the second time, Tejada takes off to steal second. Posey moves quickly but without haste, or wasted movement, calmly removes his mask, and fires a missile to take Zito out of the inning.
Twenty-Two Outs
Huff fouls off pitch after pitch and draws a walk. Posey makes up for his double play by hitting a double, sending Huff on third. Niese throws another sharply breaking curveball to Pat Burrell, who chops it lazily to second baseman Alex Cora as Huff races for home. Cora throws hard and straight, barely missing Huff, who slides under tag, jumps up and pumps his fists.
Thirty Outs
If Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval represent the perils of the puerile, Barry Zito should be a cautionary tale for any GM who thinks it wise to bet on the vet. As mature and accustomed to the limelight as Zito was when he hit the Giant jackpot for $126 million, the money nevertheless went right to his head (“What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imaginations? Moloch!” howled Allen Ginsberg.) But what does that have to do with throwing a curveball?
Barry’s old coach with the Oakland A’s explains that even more than his flawless mechanics, Barry had all “the mental and emotional toughness skills”: He had confidence in himself, he could focus on one pitch at a time, he had the ability to will a victory or dominate a hitter. “Sometimes that’s the biggest area. When pitchers typically go through tough times, it takes getting back to those thoughts and feelings you had when you were at the top of your game, winning the Cy Young. It is the critical factor to performing at your top level.”
Fifty Outs
The top of the ninth inning. Zito, who has pitched even freakier than the Freak, leaves the game with a 1-0 lead. He’s replaced by Brian Wilson. “One, two, three,” says Harry sitting next to me as the wind whips through the View Level. “Unlikely,” I grouse, always the pessimist. The crowd knows where I’m coming from; a dead hush falls over the ballpark, so quiet you can hear the creek flowing into the bay. It’s Brian Wilson time. “I promised my wife I would take my glycerin pills.” Fine. No heart attack for you, Harry, but what about the rest of us? Two outs down, one out remaining. David Wright singles. You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you, Brian? You’ve been waiting for Carlos Beltran to come up to the plate in the ninth inning with the tying run on base; waiting for a 3-2 count against one of the better hitters in baseball, to see if you can throw a ball by him faster than he can swing.
Giants 1, Mets 0.
Great article!
Whitman. OK. But I didn’t know Ginsberg was into curved balls except as double entendre. Zito is the heart-stopper, you’re right there. X/pat