In baseball, a pitch is the act of throwing a baseball toward home plate to start a play. Pitchers throw a variety of pitches, each one of which has a slightly different velocity, trajectory, movement and/or arm angle. These variations are introduced to confuse the batter in various ways, and ultimately aid the defensive team in getting the batter or baserunners out.
The pitch relies much on the seams of the ball. The seams catch the air and their motion is exaggerated or changed, making the ball more difficult to hit.
The fastball is the most common pitch in baseball, and almost all pitchers use some form of a fastball from time to time. At its simplest, it is a straight pitch thrown very fast. The cut fastball, split-finger fastball and forkball are variations on the fastball with extra movement. The most common fastball type pitches are:
Well-thrown breaking balls have movement—sideways or downward usually. The goal is usually to make the ball difficult to hit well or confusing to batters. Most breaking balls are considered off-speed pitches. The most common breaking pitches are:
submarine (actually a pitching motion, not a distinct pitch type)
Changeups
The changeup is the staple off-speed pitch, usually thrown to look like a fastball but arriving much slower to the plate. It is meant to confuse the batter with timing. The most common changeups are:
Baseball is a distant relative of cricket and rounders, and it is very similar to softball.
In Major League Baseball the longest game played was a 25-inning affair between the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers on the successive evenings of May 8-9, 1984 (the White Sox won, 7-6).
Baseball history is full of heroes and goats - men who in the heat of the moment distinguished themselves with a timely hit or catch, or an untimely strikeout or error.
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