Posted on 03/29/2026 5:41:38 AM PDT by dangus
Others have claimed that hitting a ball with the just the right part of a bat to make it fly 150 yards is the most insane skill in sports. But I would just like to consider for one moment the insanity that is pitching.
Michael Jordan soaring through the air is amazing... but the distances and heights he achieves are nothing compared to track and field contests.
Pitching, on the other hand, is simply the most extreme superlative of throwing; there is no sport of throwing something further or harder than in baseball. And yet, throwing is the activity that humans have achieved the pinnacle of. We run slow compared to cheetahs; we can't jump impressively from tree to tree. We actually are very good at running long distances, but absolutely no animal can throw as far, as hard, or as accurately over distance as humans. And a baseball pitcher throws the hardest of any human.
Jai-alai, golf and tennis achieve faster ball speeds, but with the help of scientifically perfected tools. A baseball pitcher is just a human doing the one thing, besides thinking, that humans are the best in the world at doing. It's something we do innately.
And incredibly, baseball is not merely about speed. An MLB pitcher can throw within a couple of miles per hour of the fastest pitch, and get hammered by a talented batter. The best pitchers literally make the flight path of the ball bend in mid-air to dodge a bat, using nothing but the stitching used to most efficiently hold the ball together. Mariano Rivera was arguably history's most difficult pitcher to hit off, but he was an abject failure of a pitcher until, as an answer to prayer -- I kid you not -- he suddenly mastered the cutter, an insane pitch that bends hard towards the batter at the last moment.
Seriously, if you never saw a baseball game, would you ever imagine that these people were contorting their bodes to put extra speed on a ball?
And don't even get me started on this.
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Sidearm and submarine pitchers are the most amazing of the group.
This is still my favorite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxeRtir0oA
“Taking round bat and a moving round ball and hitting it squarely is the most difficult thing to do in sports.”
-Ted Williams
In recent years, starting in January to now which is the start of the regular season, I rewatch Ken Burn’s Baseball.
It is both a joy and a pleasure to revisit the game.
What probably amazes me most is not Babe Ruth or Willie Mays but Yogi Berra.
How a pudgy little guy who was 5’7 at the most wins three MVP’s not to mention all those World Series titles still amazes me.
If baseball ever had an “everyman” it was Yogi.
I love watching YouTube videos of Sandy Koufax’ pitches. They would drop when over the plate.
19 year old Yogi Berra was also a Navy gunner’s mate on a rocket-launching boat (LCS) during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.
Hideo Nomo 
Tyler Rogers 
There isn’t any sport that requires more skill, athletic ability and extraordinary feats of human activity than ice hockey.
There is a reason that US hand grenades are baseball shaped and German hand grenades were beer bottle-shaped. You throw what you’re used to throwing.
Throwing a baseball at speed to a spot is difficult. But in today’s game, velocity is more important than control. The chicks dig it.
Throwing things with precision has been around since the cave dwellers as they used to throw rocks and sticks to hit food sources because if they tried to walk up and kill it, they would be eaten. But I don’t think hitting one of those thrown things came around till much later.
And people still throw things like footballs, skipping rocks, and in some parts of the world to catch food like the Aboriginals in Australia or in the jungles of Africa or South America to name a few.
But like Ted Williams says, hitting a baseball being thrown at different speeds with movement, sometimes great movement, with a rounded stick less than 2.61 inches wide, takes a coordination and repetition at any level of play far more than throwing the baseball. Being a good enough thrower to reach the top level of play just means you beat the guy trying to hit it more than he beat you. This is why pitchers are awarded with extreme success after three thrown balls or failure after 4, while batters are given credit for failing more than 7 out of 10 times.
wy69
So, following that through, French hand-grenades must be high-heels-shaped ...
Al Hrabosky "The Mad Hungarian"
I think NHL goaltenders are more amazing. Try pitching with 4 of 5 guys in you face.
There never was, and maybe there never will be, a major-league pitcher quite like Dan Quisenberry. He literally and figuratively came out of nowhere. Because he was a right-handed submariner, hitters had to turn their heads to pick up his pitches as they materialized out of the third baseman’s jersey and shot across the plate with a cartoonish sink. I remember Dan well.
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