Curveball or slider?
Time for another baseball one.
What makes a pitch? How do you determine whether a pitcher throws a fastball, curveball, slider, changeup? What is the differentiator? Is it the grip on the ball? Is it the rotation of the ball? Is it the horizontal or vertical movement of the ball? Is it how the batter perceives the pitch? Is it the speed?
If you don’t know much about baseball, there’s one thing you need to know before we go further. Baseball is obsessed with stats and codifying everything. Offense, defense, and pitching are all measured and analyzed in a million ways, a million times per game. Each pitch is identified in real-time. Right there on the screen, as soon as the ball crosses the plate, a pitch type pops up right next to where the ball was caught. Slider. Slider. Fastball. Changeup. Within half a second of each pitch, you know immediately what the pitcher threw. Or that’s the goal at least.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a Tigers game. Protecting a 6–5 lead with two outs in the eighth inning, Bryan Shaw threw what appeared to be a curveball to Victor Reyes. It looked like a curve based on his grip, the twist of his wrist on release, and the spin of the ball. But nothing else about the pitch looked like a curve.
Once it left his hand, it was mid-80's with no big break, rather a small break into Reyes’ back foot. That’s textbook slider action. The break of the pitch almost exactly matched the clearly-a-slider pitch that Shaw threw earlier in the same at-bat. Grip matches his curveball; action matches his slider. But the speed didn’t match his curveball or his slider. Mid-80's is too slow to be his slider, too fast to be his curve. The speed matches his changeup. So what was the pitch? The magic TV identified it as a slider but I don’t think that was quite right.
The photo above is a screen-grab and is a little blurry, but in the original broadcast they did a slow-motion, hyper-zoom on Shaw’s release, allowing this too-detailed analysis to take place.
Shaw’s grip, hand motion, and the rotation of the ball all say curveball.
The ball’s action out of Shaw’s hand says slider.
The speed of the pitch says changeup.
So again, what makes a pitch? Is it the action, or the grip, or the hand movement, or all three, or something else? I think in Shaw’s case, it was just a poorly thrown pitch that had to be assigned to something. Take your pick because this pitch doesn’t neatly fit into any category. Call it a misfire. But this one pitch isn’t what we’re trying to identify. This is full-on baseball philosophizing. We want to know the essence of a good pitch. We want to feel the energy of pitching.
It can’t just be the grip. The purpose of gripping a baseball isn’t to have a good grip on it; it’s to spin it in a way that fools the batter. You’re trying to produce something with your grip. Namely an out. The grip is a means to an end. The grip gets you the action that leads to the outcome you want. Clearly, the grip doesn’t define the pitch.
But it can’t just be the action either because speed comes into play. A lot of changeups have nearly identical action to a cutter or even a splitter, they’re just slower. (Bonus Greg Maddux quote that I’ve wanted to work in for a while: “You know why I’m a millionaire? ’Cause I can throw my fastball where I want to. You know why I got beachfront property in LA? Because I can change speeds.”) The grip is different on a changeup, leading to similar action but very different speed. So not only are you trying to produce action with your grip, but you’re also trying to fool the batter with the speed of the pitch. Action alone doesn’t make the pitch because speed also plays a crucial part.
It would seem that the two major features of a pitch — the things that actually matter in determining what a pitch is — are action and speed. Regardless of how a pitcher grips the ball, regardless of the rotation of the ball once it leaves the pitcher’s hand, the action and the speed are the desired effects. A horrible grip that leads to a good pitch is a good result. A perfect grip that leads to a bad pitch is a bad result.
This is, of course, an analogy for life. How could it not be? Baseball isn’t America’s Pasttime because it’s the most exciting or marketable sport. Baseball is America’s Pasttime because it resembles life more closely than any other sport.
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”
Jacques Barzun
Just like life, the game doesn’t end on a clock. The game ends when it’s done being played.
Just like life, it matters not how you get things done, only that you do them. A game won on a walk-off bunt or a walk-off home run is still a game won.
Just like life, every time you play another game of baseball, something happens that you’ve never seen before. Gotta think on your feet.
Just like life, there’s no guarantee who will win any single baseball game. You can pit the best team against the worst team, and both have a legitimate chance to win. That’s why you have to play the games. That’s why you have to play 162 games. Because over time those who are better and work harder will come out on top.
Just like life, it doesn’t matter how you grip the ball when you throw it, it matters what the ball does once it’s thrown. It matters what the result is.
It doesn’t matter if you plan to exercise; if you buy the clothes and sign up for Beach Body On Demand. It matters if you exercise. It doesn’t matter if you plan to wash your car today and set out the sponges and hook up the hose; if you don’t actually wash the car, it will remain dirty. The only thing that moves the needle forward in life is doing things. The action. It matters if you put in the work.
Gripping a pitch, causing it to spin in a certain way, these are plans. The pitcher is attempting to make something happen. What the pitch does once it leaves the pitcher’s hand, that’s your daily results of taking the next step. That’s what can make you successful, fulfilled, and help you move forward in life. The essence of results, like the essence of the pitch, is not in the planning. Planning is important, as the pitcher’s grip on the baseball is important. But plans don’t get us to our goals; taking action does.
A life is not made in the planning. A life is made in the doing.
