As I sit here, carefully preparing my proposal to make Kerry Wood my OWN PERSONAL STARTER I realize that I should get the fundamentals down about the various pitches…in case he wants to do some ‘light tossing in the bullpen’…
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
I’ve got the fast ball down.
I’ve got the change up down
I’ve got the breaking ball down…
but wait…
I’ve got the curve down, and I think it’s the same as the breaking ball…
are those terms interchangeable or is a breaking ball pitch different than a curve?
A breaking pitch is any pitch that appears to “break” away from its expected trajectory. So a curveball is a breaking pitch, but a breaking pitch is not necessarily a curveball. You’ve got curveballs, sliders, screwballs, split-finger fastballs, etc. How they break depends on the pitcher’s grip and throwing motion.
Popular Mechanics has a pretty good article on breaking pitches; how they’re thrown, the physics involved, whether they really break, etc. Just imagine how impressed Kerry will be with your knowledge of the ‘proper grip’.
Incidentally, the “fork ball” referred to in the above Popular Mechanics link is the same pitch that is usually called the “split-finger fastball” today.
And, as headshok has correctly pointed out, the fork ball – as well as the curve ball, the slider, and the dreaded screwball – are all considered “breaking ball” pitches.
When the sports announcer says, “He just threw a breaking ball,” he really means, “He just threw some kind of breaking pitch – maybe a slider, maybe a curve ball, I didn’t get a good enough look at it to tell.”
