Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
There are a lot of funky names when it comes to talking about baseball pitches. We've all
heard of the fast ball, both four-seam and two-seam, curve ball, slider, and change up.
But then there are some other ones that some of us may not have heard of, for instance
the split finger, also known as the splitter, as known as Mr. Splitty; the screwball, also
known as the Scroogie; the cut fast ball, also known as the cut or the cutter, made
famous by Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, and more recently Roy Hallady of the Philadelphia
Phillies.
Some other funky names that go with pitches would be knuckle ball, knuckle curve, and
shoe toe, a pitch famous in Japan that acts much like a two-seam fast ball or a screw
ball as seen in the movie Mr. Baseball where Tom Selleck travelled from the United States
to Japan and could not hit the famous shoe toe. There's also a gyro ball, which is thrown
with a spin much like a spiraled football. And then we have the well-known La Lob, which
is from Dave LaRoche of the New York Yankees who threw this ephus pitch as we know it.
Another pitch that some people like to toy with is known as the side arm knuckle ball.
The fork ball, which is a variation of the split finger fast ball, is thrown deeper in
the hand, and the fork ball of course has been mastered by Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco
Giants, also mastered by Jack Morris in the mid-1980s of the Detroit Tigers. There's also
the palm ball thrown as a four-finger change up, along with of course the circle change
up, and the three-finger or trophy change up, and the knuckle curve ball, as well as
the side arm knuckle curve ball.
When considering all of these different pitches' names there are two components that we all
need to remember as pitchers. One, we must throw all these pitches with the same arm
speed and from the same arm slot, otherwise we will tip them off and their hitter will
know which pitch it coming. These are a variety of different pitches that we know in baseball.