Posted on: May 19, 2010 by admin
If you have played baseball before, you will know that the baseball used can be very important to the overall play of the game, especially if you are the pitcher. The seams of the ball have to be perfectly uniform around it. The core and out materials must be smooth but not slippery. The big differences for pitchers would be the seam height. Up through college the seam heights are taller than the balls used in the MLB. Give a junk ball pitcher one of these type balls with a large seam height and he could really improve his game a ton. Believe it or not, their really is a science behind it.
Posted on: May 14, 2010 by admin
In the annuls of baseball history there have been some not so great moments on the field when players decided that they need to cheat. One way players can cheat is by corking their bat. By doing this the ball will fly off the bat with a ton more force. People may say that they do this because they are under tons of pressure to perform well. Nope, they are just cheaters.
Pitchers have been known to put pine tar on the bills of their cap. This can help junk ballers to get better control of their pitches. These tricks are just desperate attempts to better themselves in un-natural ways. Does it give them enough of an edge to risk what they do? It must or they would not do it, but cheating is still cheating.
Posted on: May 13, 2010 by admin
If you are a diehard baseball fan, you know what it means when someone says the unwritten rules of baseball. Basically there are the general rules of the game that all players and coaches must follow. There are those extra set of rules though that the players follow because, well, everyone else does in the game. One of these rules is never hitting a batter with a pitch after someone hits a homerun off of you. It is way too obvious that the pitcher is upset. If you do this then it is likely the player will charge the mound. Another rule is for a base runner that is out and returning to the dugout, he never runs back across the pitchers mound. This is one of those territorial unwritten rules that players tend to follow. Now will someone be in trouble with game officials for breaking these rules? Never, just with the players themselves. So there you have it, a small sampling of some rules that are not really rules, it just depends on how you look at it.
Posted on: May 12, 2010 by admin
From Phil Niekro and Charlie Hough to Tim Wakefield, these pitchers do not get by on their blazing fast balls but they get by on the knuckle ball. When they pitch, the catcher may tend to wear a much larger glove because the ball is so hard to catch. The knuckle ball can be a great pitch. At times it can be really bad though. As slow as it’s moving if it does not break hard at some point, it ends up a sitting duck for batters to try and knock out of the park. But, it must work well enough since these pitchers have been amazingly successful with it. Do you think you can hit one? It may look easy to at times, but it’s not.