Beautiful Story

Wow. 

Comments

[Lynne]

ok, I am English. I know NOTHING about baseball.

What is a knuckleball? Is it like a cricket googly?

[Jayne]

Cricket googly? I have NO idea what that means, though just based on the sound of it, it could be similar to a knuckleball. Basically a knuckleball is thrown way differently than any other pitch. When you throw a ball, youve basically got the ball in your hand, you pull your arm back, and throw, releasing the ball from your whole hand, right? Baseball pitchers have different types of pitches that they control by the way they hold the ball when they throw it. But a knuckleballer is holding the ball with the tips of his fingers, not with all or some of his (or her) fingers and thumb. So as youre holding the ball, your hand kind of looks like a claw because only the tips of your fingers are touching the ball - and all your knuckles are up, so Im guessing
thats where the actual term came from. The cool thing about a knuckleball is that it doesnt travel the same way as other thrown balls. If you think of the path of a ball as it leaves the pitchers (or whoever is throwing a ball) hand and travels to whoever is catching it, the pathway is a curving line. It may have more or less of a trajectory depending on the speed of the pitch, and the ball might curve to the left or right or at some angle, but basically it follows a linear path. And the batter, as he (or she) watches the pitcher throw the ball, tries to read where the ball is going to be when it crosses the plate, so he (or she) knows whether or not to swing at it, or when, or how high or low, etc. Pretty straightforward, right? With a knuckleball, all that is out the window. The knuckleball, because of the way the pitcher holds it and because the pitcher also keeps his wrist relatively stiff when he(she)
throws - to me it almost looks like the throw is a mix of normal pitching and shot putting (which is more like pushing in some ways than throwing) - so the ball travels slower, first of all, and because it is slower, there is more friction between the air and the ball and the seams on the ball, and this resistance, or drag, makes the ball move differently - it dances and shifts and rises and drops, so its extremely difficult to predict where its going to be when it makes it to the plate. Its a pretty cool thing to watch, actually.

So whats a Cricket googly?

[Michelle (Florida)]

Its so cool to see local hometown news reach so far!!!