Great Article: Decline of the Curve

[MC Brohammer]

Decline of the Curve.  
 
Looong but great article written by Pat Jordan on the decline in use of the big overhand curveball.  Few things struck me:
 
1.  The degree of difficulty involved in teaching/learning it
2.  How the lowering of the mound and the change in the strike zone has led to its diminished use
3.  The comment that properly thrown it doesn't hurt young arms as much as a fastball or slider.  Not sure about that one
4.  The anecdote about Fisk and Nolan Ryan

 

[absintheofmalaise]

Thanks for posting this. Excellent article.

 

[Hagios]

I'm sure many have already seen it, but suberb article from Sports on Earth:
 

But the slider has its disadvantages, too, which was why in the 1950s it was called a "nickel curve" -- that's all it was worth compared to a real curve: five cents on the dollar. It required more pinpoint control than a curve. If it broke over the plate, it was a hitter's pitch; it had to be thrown down the middle, so that it broke off the plate. It had another problem, too. A slider had a particular spin so that the ball, spinning off-center, showed a white dot in the middle of it, which batters could see. Finally, a slider had the same disadvantage shared by all right-to-left breaking pitches: The batter's bat was 36 inches long, which gave him a lot of inches to make contact with the pitch. On the other hand, the batter's bat was only four inches wide, with less than an inch of that width in its sweet spot. An overhand curveball forces the batter to hit a ball that seems to break downward by more than a foot, using only one inch of his bat.

 

Williams came to the Braves' training camp in 1960, when I was there as a pitching prospect. I wandered over to home plate, where he was talking to our minor league hitters, to see what he had to say. All the hitters surrounded him as he stood at bat, facing the mound. I heard him say, "Now when the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, and you pick up the downward spin on it, you'll know it's a curve, so stay back on it until it begins its break." All the hitters nodded at this advice, as if it couldn't be clearer. Then, when Williams left, I heard the hitters mumbling, "Who the f--- can see the spin on a curveball?" Well, Ted Williams, a former jet fighter pilot with 20/10 vision, could. He could read the label on a spinning 78-rpm record.

 
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/88249076/overhand-curveball-evolution-mlb-history-of-the-game
 
tl;dr - the lowering of the mound and the reduction of the strike zone made this pitch less effective and Ted Williams is awesome.

 

[lexrageorge]

This article is not the first I've heard about the curveball being less stressful than other pitches on developing arms.  Conventional wisdom has held that the opposite is true, but there's precious little hard data behind it, and the author may have a point.  

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

 
Well, Ted Williams, a former jet fighter pilot with 20/10 vision, could. He could read the label on a spinning 78-rpm record.

 
Williams denied that this was the case for many, many years. He never claimed to be able to read the label on a record, and his vision was 20/20, not 20/10. Maybe his reflexes were made made him a great hitter and fighter pilot, but his vision was good but not extraordinary.

 

[Dave Stapleton]

This article is not the first I've heard about the curveball being less stressful than other pitches on developing arms.  Conventional wisdom has held that the opposite is true, but there's precious little hard data behind it, and the author may have a point.  

Little league has evidently done many physiological studies on the topic and use them as a basis for allowing curves. Instead the focus is on pitches thrown and rest between appearances.

Here's a link which includes a further link to one of the full studies.

http://www.littleleague.org/Page58534.aspx

 

[MalzoneExpress]

 
Williams denied that this was the case for many, many years. He never claimed to be able to read the label on a record, and his vision was 20/20, not 20/10. Maybe his reflexes were made made him a great hitter and fighter pilot, but his vision was good but not extraordinary.

 
His vision was 20-10.
 
I had 20-10 vision.
 
and
 
He DID in fact have 20/10 acuity, ... the ophthalmologist performing Williams' entry examination said his vision was on the order of a "1 in 100,000 occurrence."
 
but the other myths are, well, myths.
 
Hell, no, I couldn’t see the laces.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I haven't had time to read the article yet, but there's more than one way to throw a curve. The big overhand that I threw put very little stress on my arm - it was all about grip and release. A lot of kids threw a curve by snapping the wrist, though, more of a slurve from three quarters delivery, and I felt like that always killed my elbow if I threw too many of them. 

 

[GreenMonster49]

Pat Jordan write about his time in the low minors (including pitching for the McCook Braves witrh Phil Niekro and Ron Hunt in 1959, the last year of the Nebraska State League) in A False Spring--definitely worth reading if you can find a copy.

 

[Vandalman]

The pitcher's mound was lowered after the 1968 season. It seems like the emphasis on non-curves is much more recent (early '90s on, perhaps). Maybe it took a generation to work its way out.

 

[timlinin8th]

The pitcher's mound was lowered after the 1968 season. It seems like the emphasis on non-curves is much more recent (early '90s on, perhaps). Maybe it took a generation to work its way out.

Or with the advent of the steroid era, hitters became far more likely to hit a mistake curve out of the park where in previous generations you might still have a chance to get away with it; thus making sliders and cutters the secondary pitches of choice for more pitchers? I have no real knowledge or evidence but the eras would line up and the other secondary pitches did become more vogue around that time.