the.com/pitcher
throws a ball 60 feet at speeds your eyes can't actually track
means In baseball, the player who throws the ball toward the batter from the mound to start each play; also, separately, a jug-like vessel with a handle and spout for pouring liquids.
from Two distinct words wearing the same coat. The vessel sense is the older traveler: it comes through Old French 'pichier' (a jug), from Medieval Latin 'picarium,' a cousin of the same family that gives us 'beaker.' The baseball sense is much younger and homegrown—simply 'one who pitches,' from the verb 'pitch,' meaning to throw or fling, attached to the 19th-century American game. So the man on the mound and the lemonade jug are linguistic strangers who happen to share a spelling.
- reaction window
- batters get roughly 0.4 seconds to decide
- arm cost
- elbow ligaments snap, surgeries named after the first patient
- the mound
- raised exactly 10 inches to favor the thrower
- perfect game
- 27 batters, zero reach base, fewer than 25 ever
- spin
- a curveball rotates 1500+ times per minute
clayton kershaw — la dodgers pitcher with 3 cy young awards, 2014 mvp
walter johnson — washington senators pitcher, 417 career wins, early 1900s-1920s
sandy koufax — la dodgers left-hander, 4 no-hitters, 1960s