A pitch that geeks can love...

For some reason, I'm completely fascinated by the legend of the gyroball. This isn't the first time I've posted something about it. Even if one really was thrown during a nationally televised game with the aid of slow motion to review the pitch, though, I'm not sure I'd be able to identify it. Heck, differentiating between a fastball, curveball, knuckleball, slider, changeup, etc. is still a bit difficult for me to pick up during the course of a ballgame.

Strangely, Daisuke Matsuzaka, the $50+ million Japanese import picked up by the Boston Red Sox during this offseason who purportedly is the only ballplayer able to throw the pitch consistently during play, denies he even has this in his bag of tricks. But to clear up the mystery, The New York Times ran a story complete with some nifty graphics featuring Kazushi Tezuka, the Japanese trainer who invented the pitch over a decade ago:

Tezuka used a standard fastball grip. He went into a basic motion. Only at the end of his delivery did he deviate. He turned the inside of his throwing arm away from his body and released the ball as if it were a football, making it spiral toward home plate.

The pitch started on the same course as a changeup, but it barely dipped. It looked like a slider, but it did not break. The gyroball, despite its zany name, is supposed to stay perfectly straight.

Is it a myth? Is it real? I don't know, but I'm kind of excited about the start of the upcoming Major League Baseball season.