So You Want to be a Catcher, Part 2

This blog post is a continuation of a previous post, So You Want to be a Catcher, Part 1.

As a catcher you have to manage your pitching staff by knowing your pitchers, all of their pitches, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.  Each pitcher on my high-school team had a decent fastball, but it was their secondary pitches that made each pitcher unique and interesting to catch.

Right hander Jake had a good curveball, and could throw a knuckleball that was hard to hit, but so unpredictable that it was very difficult for me to even catch.  Gary had a good slider, which is faster than a curve but doesn’t break as far.  Don could throw a curveball, and a split-finger fastball that would drop just as it got to the plate.  Dan had a tailing fastball (also known as a cutter) that had late motion at the plate.

Lefty Brian had a curve and a sinker.  Lefty Mark had a flat curve, a sinker, and another pitch that would break like a curve and then drop like a sinker.  I had absolutely no idea what it was, so we just called that pitch “Eephus.”  I’ve never seen a left-handed baseball player that could throw a baseball perfectly straight, so I think that comes in pretty useful when lefty pitchers are trying to prevent batters from hitting the ball.

I remember catching a game for pitcher Don one day where the wind was gusting from home plate out towards the pitcher’s mound.  I called a curveball against a right-handed batter, and just as Don released the ball there was a big gust of wind.  The ball started out heading right at the batter, so he naturally bailed out of the way & landed flat on his back.  Spinning into the gusting wind, that ball curved more than any curveball I’ve ever seen, curving until it actually crossed the plate.  “Steeeeriiiiike!” the umpire yelled.

The batter who was lying on his back, looked up at the umpire & exclaimed “What!!!???  He couldn’t believe that a pitch that almost hit him was called a strike.  My pitcher had to stifle a laugh, & I was grinning under my catcher’s mask because I thought it was hilarious.  I could tell that even the umpire thought it was funny.  I guess the wind was on our side that day.

Stay tuned sports fans for the next installment of So You Want to be a Catcher, where I’ll explain the Fine & Glorious Art of calling pitches, the intellectual Game within the Game.

Labels: Sports, Thoughts