Friday, February 23, 2007

Does it or doesn't it?

The Times, in a piece that got an A1 ride yesterday, takes up, once again, the tale of the gyroball, which, as I've noted before in this space, Ideas was on to long before Dice-K was a household name. A time that a lot of Sox fans, thoroughly bored by the blanket coverage Matsuzaka has received before ever throwing a pitch in a game, now remember fondly.

The Times piece adds something to our understanding of the pitch in that it's the first piece I've read that interviews Kazushi Tezuka, who the Times credits with inventing the gyroball. (Ideas caught up with Ryutaro Himeno, who co-authored, with Tezuka, the book that set the gyroball story in motion.)

But there's still a lot that's puzzling about this story, and I'm still not convinced we have a game-changing pitch on our hands here. The Times piece has some nifty diagrams showing how the gyroball spins (i.e., like a football), and a description of Tezuka throwing gyros in Scottsdale, Ariz. But take a look at that description:

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.

“That’s it!” Tezuka said, laughing hysterically on the mound. “That’s the gyro!”

Tezuka seems to think the pitch works in part thanks to the element of surprise, but I can't get over the fact that what he's describing is a not-very-fast pitch with no movement. I believe we already know about that kind of pitch, and even have a name for it: the gopher ball.

Posted by John Swansburg at 02:07 PM

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