• 14 Posts
  • 278 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 9th, 2023
  • Optional@lemmy.worldtoTenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name@lemmy.world•The Emmisary ponders his orb
    3·
    6 days ago

    ANNOUNCER: Ladies and Gentleman, in tonight’s performance of Deep Space Nine, the role of “Ben Sisko” will be played by Bill “Spaceman” Lee.

    RSN: Let’s talk about pitching, and pitchers. We’ll start with Oil Can Boyd.

    BL: The Can! Man, he’s a great story. As a matter of fact, if they ever do Satchel Paige’s life story, Oil Can should play the lead role. He’s Satchel, incarnate! I was sort of a left handed Paige, myself, but The Can was the real deal.

    RSN: I brought up Oil Can because he threw such a variety of pitches, and from a lot of different arm angles. Warren Spahn, meanwhile, said you only need two: the one the hitter’s looking for, and the one he’s not. Where do you fit in?

    BL: I know it’s a cliche, but pitching is like real estate: location, location, location. That, and changing speeds. It takes guts and confidence to throw slow stuff over the plate, but you have to do it. Greg Maddux pitches like the Spahn quote. He gets hitters looking for one thing and freezes them with another. I think he looks at the plate differently than other pitchers. He looks at it in three-dimensions, with a spatial relationship.

    RSN: What did you throw, and how hard?

    BL: I could get as high as 90, but I was mostly around 86. I could be pinpoint at 85-86, so that’s where I stayed most of the time. I threw a change and breaking ball, too. Sometimes a cutter off my fastball. My change was like a screwball. I threw a 12-to-6 curve, sort of like Barry Zito does now. And I knew enough to stay away from guys who were hot.

    RSN: Tell us about that.

    BL: There are times when you have to pitch around guys who are hitting everything. Derek Lowe, for instance, has the problem of not knowing when a hitter is dangerous. Sometimes you can’t attack every hitter. You have to stay away from the guys who are hot. Of course, sometimes the whole team is hot and then you need to get lucky. I once saw Catfish Hunter give up seven consecutive fly-outs to the warning track.

    RSN: It sounds like you might be a believer in charts on hitters, more than pitching to your own strengths.

    BL: I believe you should know the hitters, but you should KNOW them — not have to rely on charts. That’s one of the problems with baseball. There are too many academics and slide rule guys, and not enough baseball guys. Why use charts when you can use your mind? That’s what your neurons are for.