Baseball junkies, have you ever watched a video of Walter Johnson pitching?

When I was a kid, the boys in my neighborhood used to play a game (we called it "step ball") where we threw a ball - usually a tennis ball - at the bottom step of a set of stairs - often the entry stairs of one of our houses. The thrower was considered the "batter." There were three possibilities (basically) when throwing the ball and hitting the step like this: if you struck the step slightly BELOW the corner of the step, the ball bounced out to the "fielders" as a "grounder" and if they caught it cleanly you had one out. If you threw the ball slightly ABOVE the corner of the step, the ball would carom off the next higher step and create a lazy fly ball which, if caught by the fielder, was also an out.

But if you precisely hit the corner of the step, the ball would take off, often so far that it went over the fielders' heads for a "Home Run." We scored it like baseball, of course, and played games of as many innings as it took to bore us to death. Lots of innings.

Well...

A couple of my formative years were spent playing this game, hour after hour, and as you might imagine, for best results you had to throw the ball sidearm.

So when I started playing Little League I - unknown to me - had a weird sidearm motion that caused the ball to curve to the right (like a screwball). My arm was also pretty strong. When I started pitching, this motion had the dual effect of making the ball look like it was going directly at the RH batters, and maintaining that left-to-right curve. It was devastating, but of course my control was to put it kindly, not good.

I had good success in Little League, Pony League, and my first year of Colt League (15 years old). When I turned 16, we got a new coach on the Colt team, and he refused to allow me to pitch, believing that my motion would ruin my arm. Until that time, no one had ever even mentioned to me that my throwing motion was odd -probably because I was having success. Nor did the coach explain to me what he thought was my throwing flaw or how to correct it. Ass-hole.

But having a car, a job (or two), a girlfriend and better things to do, I quit baseball and never looked back.

My throwing motion was very much like that of Walter Johnson in the video. It STILL feels natural to me to throw sidearm (I'll be 70 in a couple weeks), although when called upon to throw something (usually a softball) I throw overhand.

Oh yeah we played stepball all the time. Ball goes this far it's a double, THIS far it's a HR, etc.

You left out one thing though. You throw at the "away" side of the step to drive the ball away from the fielder and make him run. Not too far of an angle, because that telephone pole is the foul line.

We played wireball sometimes too though I don't remember the rules. There was a set of utility wires crossing the street. And sometimes for a goof we'd play halfball.
Those really WERE the good old days, weren't they?

No question. Now, our formal games would be in a particular house's back yard where the neighborhood had been cut out of a forest so some big old trees remained. If you needed to make something happen the thing to do would be to pull the ball into the treetops where it could bounce on any branch and good luck catching it. There were telephone wires over the centerfield fence; if you cleared the low wire you had a ground rule double, middle wire, triple, clear all the wires, touch 'em all. Of course we had to revise those as we grew up and got bigger.
 
No question. Now, our formal games would be in a particular house's back yard where the neighborhood had been cut out of a forest so some big old trees remained. If you needed to make something happen the thing to do would be to pull the ball into the treetops where it could bounce on any branch and good luck catching it. There were telephone wires over the centerfield fence; if you cleared the low wire you had a ground rule double, middle wire, triple, clear all the wires, touch 'em all. Of course we had to revise those as we grew up and got bigger.
That description fits my early years in Altoona Pa. [we actually played on shale when we could muster up enough players] then we moved to N.J. for 2 years and all we had was tee/wiffle ball in the park, but once I moved to L.I. there were fields everywhere, 4 schools with at least 3 fields each, a bunch of well manicured beach fields with real infields, backstops, fences and lights and enough players to field several teams every weekend and most times some guys had to sit out [and that's true in most towns here]..it was baseball heaven for me.
 
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I hadn't seen that, thanks. Didn't realize he was all sidearm and yet so effective.

Whenever I tried to sidearm the hitters just lit me up. Seemed like they could see it all the way.
I had a Marichal [sp] wind-up, great velocity with no control, once pitched a 7 inning [complete game] no-hitter but gave up 6 runs on 14 walks...played third when not pitching
 
The video is poor quality, nearly 100 years old but it is fascinating to watch Walter Johnson's motion especially the last part of the video showing his game speed motion. Watch his back leg, it never comes off the pitching rubber! I have never seen anyone pitch like that but according to history Johnson pitched 21 seasons and never had a significant arm injury and was absolutely the best pitcher of his era and possibly of all time. You would think someone would try to emulate his motion, but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone do it. Even great side-armers like Kent Tekulve brought their back leg through after the pitch and they throw slow. Johnson was a pure fastball pitcher.



You know who it's a little bit reminiscent of ---- Madison Bumgarner. MadBum isn't really a sidearmer but he's got that arm so straight-out extended in the same way.
 
big time baseball junkie, first time though I ever saw his motion,...have you ever seen Juan Marichals ?

My father taught me to pitch like him.


If you've never seen Luis Tiant pitch you should check that out


July 2, 1963: Marichal outduels Spahn in 16-inning thriller | Society for American Baseball Research

At slightly past eight o’clock, Marichal took the Candlestick Park mound. Four hours and 15 innings later, he was still toiling there. And so was Warren Spahn–in a scoreless pitching duel.

In the 16th, Marichal allowed a two-out single to Menke, and then registered his 48th out of the night on Larker’s comebacker to the mound. It was Marichal’s 227th pitch.

When the Giants hit, Spahn retired Harvey Kuenn on a fly out. That brought up future Hall of Famer Mays, still hitless on the long night. Now, Mays drove Spahn’s first pitch through the teeth of the wind in left. The ball cleared the fence, and with that, a masterfully-pitched game dramatically ended. Marichal was the exhausted victor; Spahn, the valiantly defeated.

Wow! Can you imagine that happening today? If a pitcher completes a game, they practically name him a Cy Young candidate.
Yeah, but a lot of pitchers had a few great years racking up 300+ innings and their arms were shot. Koufax, McClain among them. Carlton, Gaylord and Ryan were freaks like Marichal and the Niekros were knuckleballers

Right but Koufax and McLain threw over the top. Johnson may well have been a freak. Maybe that is why no one tries to throw sidearm fastballs.

If you throw overhand, your worry is pitching the ball high or low in the direction thrown. If you throw sidearm, you not only have the pitch being high or low but side to side. Fastballs are not only velocity but movement. Rotation of the ball and a slight deviation of the pitch means the batter does not have it grooved to him and may mean a pop up instead of a homer.
 
big time baseball junkie, first time though I ever saw his motion,...have you ever seen Juan Marichals ?

My father taught me to pitch like him.


If you've never seen Luis Tiant pitch you should check that out


July 2, 1963: Marichal outduels Spahn in 16-inning thriller | Society for American Baseball Research

At slightly past eight o’clock, Marichal took the Candlestick Park mound. Four hours and 15 innings later, he was still toiling there. And so was Warren Spahn–in a scoreless pitching duel.

In the 16th, Marichal allowed a two-out single to Menke, and then registered his 48th out of the night on Larker’s comebacker to the mound. It was Marichal’s 227th pitch.

When the Giants hit, Spahn retired Harvey Kuenn on a fly out. That brought up future Hall of Famer Mays, still hitless on the long night. Now, Mays drove Spahn’s first pitch through the teeth of the wind in left. The ball cleared the fence, and with that, a masterfully-pitched game dramatically ended. Marichal was the exhausted victor; Spahn, the valiantly defeated.

Wow! Can you imagine that happening today? If a pitcher completes a game, they practically name him a Cy Young candidate.
Yeah, but a lot of pitchers had a few great years racking up 300+ innings and their arms were shot. Koufax, McClain among them. Carlton, Gaylord and Ryan were freaks like Marichal and the Niekros were knuckleballers

Right but Koufax and McLain threw over the top. Johnson may well have been a freak. Maybe that is why no one tries to throw sidearm fastballs.

If you throw overhand, your worry is pitching the ball high or low in the direction thrown. If you throw sidearm, you not only have the pitch being high or low but side to side. Fastballs are not only velocity but movement. Rotation of the ball and a slight deviation of the pitch means the batter does not have it grooved to him and may mean a pop up instead of a homer.

I used to pitch over the top and I had no problem throwing high, low, left or right! Control will always be an issue regardless of arm angle.
 
big time baseball junkie, first time though I ever saw his motion,...have you ever seen Juan Marichals ?

My father taught me to pitch like him.


If you've never seen Luis Tiant pitch you should check that out


July 2, 1963: Marichal outduels Spahn in 16-inning thriller | Society for American Baseball Research

At slightly past eight o’clock, Marichal took the Candlestick Park mound. Four hours and 15 innings later, he was still toiling there. And so was Warren Spahn–in a scoreless pitching duel.

In the 16th, Marichal allowed a two-out single to Menke, and then registered his 48th out of the night on Larker’s comebacker to the mound. It was Marichal’s 227th pitch.

When the Giants hit, Spahn retired Harvey Kuenn on a fly out. That brought up future Hall of Famer Mays, still hitless on the long night. Now, Mays drove Spahn’s first pitch through the teeth of the wind in left. The ball cleared the fence, and with that, a masterfully-pitched game dramatically ended. Marichal was the exhausted victor; Spahn, the valiantly defeated.

Wow! Can you imagine that happening today? If a pitcher completes a game, they practically name him a Cy Young candidate.
Yeah, but a lot of pitchers had a few great years racking up 300+ innings and their arms were shot. Koufax, McClain among them. Carlton, Gaylord and Ryan were freaks like Marichal and the Niekros were knuckleballers

Right but Koufax and McLain threw over the top. Johnson may well have been a freak. Maybe that is why no one tries to throw sidearm fastballs.

If you throw overhand, your worry is pitching the ball high or low in the direction thrown. If you throw sidearm, you not only have the pitch being high or low but side to side. Fastballs are not only velocity but movement. Rotation of the ball and a slight deviation of the pitch means the batter does not have it grooved to him and may mean a pop up instead of a homer.

I used to pitch over the top and I had no problem throwing high, low, left or right! Control will always be an issue regardless of arm angle.

Direct over hand throwing will reduce the side pitches immensely.Not just over the top. The arm must be trained for direct over the top throwing. It works incredibly as a fielder also. Maybe even better.
 

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