Why We Don't See This Physics Defying Pitch Anymore - The Mythical Screwball

What happened to The Screwball? It was a pitch that defied logic and physics by breaking like a curveball from the opposite arm. The pitch was thrown by Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell, Juan Marichal, Fernando Valenzuela and others of the past. However, in modern baseball, it is very rare. In this HUMM BABY BASEBALL Special, we examine the SCREWBALL and some reasons why perhaps we don't see it anymore.

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[HummBabyBaseball]

Comment #2000! Thanks for all your support on this video!!

[domgrosso]

“You only need two pitches. One they’re looking for, and one they ain’t. “- Dizzy Dean

[PinballBob]

I can't resist adding that Screwball pitcher Carl Hubbell, in the 1934 All Star game, struck out in order, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, Al Simmons, & Joe Cronin. All 5 of them HOF.

[danamaral]

I learned in high school that I threw a natural screwball. I went from center field to pitcher. It was the only thing I knew to throw. Thank you, coach Lovell Smith for discovering this!

[TruthHurtsu]

One year I was catcher for our little league team and our pitcher was amazing. This was a 15 year old kid and he could throw any pitch there was. He could curve a ball in almost any direction and the amount of break his pitches had was incredible to witness. His knuckle balls were all over the place and were just as hard to catch as they were to hit. His change ups were so drastic they appeared to slam on the breaks at the last second and I dreaded his fast balls, they used to hurt sooo bad. Three out of four years he was pitching we had an undefeated season and we made it to all-state playoffs. If the rest of us had been better this kid could have carried us to a Little League Championship. I thought for sure we would end up seeing him playing for the pros someday. Never did.

[fjb]

"Screwballs aren't hard to hit, when you can hit'em." Yogi Berra

[andrewflanagan]

“Wouldn’t be hard to hit if the hitter was expecting it...”
Cuts to B roll of Astros hitting. Lovely

[thathockeyguy]

I’m 57 years old now and I threw a screwball for four years of high school baseball in the early eighties. Mike Marshall actually played for the Minnesota Twins as his last team and I met him once and he showed my how he threw it with finger placement and all. I never had any major injuries but then again I never played after high school. I have often wondered why not many in the big leagues throw it anymore. I had reasonably good control of it and would usually get similar speed as my fastball because you can only twist your arm (obviously) only slightly.

[adraedin]

3:57 That was an insane curve...

As a kid, I was under the impression that a pitcher just through it fast and as straight as possible - the idea being to get the ball pass the batter. Growing older, I've realized that (obviously) there's more to it than that. It has always intrigued me how a pitcher can make a ball do different things just by grabbing the ball differently and changing a few minor forces in a throw that's already involving so many moving parts of your body. And then the batter has like .5 seconds to notice and respond to a ball flying at him... what an interesting game.

[cecerosetv]

I’ve been throwing this pitch for the last 25 years in adult baseball with great success. You don’t get as many strikeouts as a normal pitcher but what you do get a lot of is weak contact, which helps tremendously on defense.

[brainmistrust]

Late in his career, Greg Maddux’s 2-seamer was practically a screwball.

[johnknapp]

For the first few months of Valenzuela's first year with the Dodgers, he was not only almost unhittable but also has had the best batting average of the team.

[thehellezell]

My grandfather played AA minor leagues (back before WW2 and AAA lol) and I believe pitched sometimes (although he was primarily a short stop I think). When he was teaching me how to play he showed me how to throw a screwball but I could never get it. He thought of it more as a novelty and said it was way to unpredictable / hard to control even though it was a beast to try to hit one.

[LLPOF]

All I know is that it was very hard on my arm (in hs) and I had quit trying to throw it. Yes, I had "proper" mechanics for it, and it still hurt. That doesn't mean other people can't throw it. We're all made a little different.

[Garyalarson]

I don’t see them “extinct” as much as rebranded a sinking 2-seamers and circle changeups. Personally I threw my change and had a reverse slider rotation like a screwball and could even pull down on the front of the ball to give it more vertical break. Maybe the “grip” of the screwball - offset FB with pressure pushing the ball outside the hand is not seen as much, but the action of screwballs is alive and well today more than ever.

[Cincinnatus]

My older brother is a tall left hander who threw hard but everytime he threw it moved like a screwball. Even when he threw from the outfield the ball tended to drift to his left. I've not seen anyone with as much natural movement as his throws. He got to be able to control it better and played for a league in Virginia / Maryland/ Pa in the 80s.

[itinerantpatriot]

Willie Hernandez was another who won a Cy Young relying on his screwball. I learned the grip and how to throw it watching Monday Night Baseball back in the early 70s. I forget the pitcher who was in that segment but for a guy like me, a utility player who pitched batting practice simply because I could throw strikes consistently, it gave me a breaking pitch I could actually throw on those rare occasions when the coach would let me pitch in a live game. So here's a thumbs up from an old screwballer who was a bench player because he couldn't hit pitches like the screwball.

[jimschwandt]

If you're a few years older, you'll remember pitchers who were referenced by announcers as junkballers. They were always tossing screwballs, forkballs, and the like. I can't remember the last time I heard an announcer use that term.

Needless to say, I'd like to see those old pitches re-emerge again.

[rickkinki]

Fernando was just awesome!

I can remember in the late 1960s watching a Dodgers game at my grandmother's house. Jim Brewer was pitching for L.A. and Vin Scully called him a screwball pitcher, which of course he was. My grandmother thought that was a very rude thing to call the pitcher. Why did he call him a screwball?

I miss you, Grandma!

[crashburn]

I got away with throwing it in high school, but in college, the slower speed and movement led to it getting hit much more than the curve. It would hang more. And that's the consensus I got from other pitchers who threw it. You just can't get as much movement or speed on pushing with the outside of your fingers, compared to pulling with the inside of your fingers.