Because an injury of my own has me side-lined, I’m watching a lot of Braves baseball these days, and last week noticed what I would call a “contortionist” pitching delivery! (as did the announcers:))
So I did a bit of reading and learned that Joe had a tumor on his left leg which made me wonder if that’s the reason for the unusual style?
He looks kinda “scary” from a batter’s standpoint, which reminds me of my pony league days, when I couldn’t stand hitting against a side-arm pitcher.
Do y’all know of any other pitchers whith an unusual delivery?
BTW, they showed him in slo-mo that night, and man, that looks like it would hurt, pitching like that!
Odd, but yes, it’s not Hideo Nomo odd, or Fernando Valenzuela or Hideki Okajima odd. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s so weird about this guy, even for a sidearmer. I think it’s that he is actually releasing the ball much higher than you would expect, given how low to the ground the rest of his body is.
Chad Bradford has a very odd style. Someone once put together a composite image of him-took his upper body and rotated it to be in a normal position-his motion is similar to a regular pitcher. He just leans way over to throw from about two inches off the ground.
The way I understand it, (and I’m an old Atlanta Crackers fan!) the mitt was used to stop it rather than catch it, because it’s such a crazy pitch and hard to follow!
God, I MISS those days of B&W TV and watching the Crackers play:
For a kid just “off the boat”, whose Dad tried to explain the concept of “Bäse-ball”, I was just mesmerized, because all I had been used to, up until that time, was “Fussball”.
To this day, Germans don’t “get” baseball (for the most part). American football ('Der Eier-Ball" - The “Egg-Ball”) and basketball - yes, but unless you see a field on an Army Base, I don’t think you’ll see a baseball stadium in Deutschland.
Now, I’ll stand back while one of you “whippersnappers” proves me wrong!
I will always love Fussball (soccer), but “Base-a-ball have been bery, bery good to me!” (Who said that?).
Also, the other night, while I was watching the Braves play the Padres?
I heard the announcer say something like (and I’m not quoting exactly, okay):
“The Nicaraguan pitcher is pitching to the Japanese batter as the Cuban second baseman chats with the Phillipino runner”.
As I said, that isn’t an exact quote, but it just demonstrates what a great game baseball is, to have crossed all kinds of borders like that!
Kids these days… just no respect for their elders!
What’re ya gonna do with 'em?
Ya try to tell 'em something, and do they take it as fact from a wizened old gentleman and pass it on to their children and grandchildren?
Nope.
They run right to them comm-pooters and go to Wicki-whatever and spout their knowledge!
Well [Dana Carvey] we didn’t have “knowledge” back in my day! We had them “rumors”, and that’s how we lived our lives! Based on them rumors! And we liked it![/Dana Carvey].
None taken, Guin. Actually, I wouldn’t have guessed there was a Bundesliga for baseball in Germany either. I wasn’t trying to purposely prove you wrong.
