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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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.
“You only need two pitches. One they’re looking for, and one they ain’t. “- Dizzy Dean
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!
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.
"Screwballs aren't hard to hit, when you can hit'em." Yogi Berra
“Wouldn’t be hard to hit if the hitter was expecting it...”
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.
3:57
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.
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.
I’m always amazed at the accuracy of pitchers. To see a ball do such crazy stuff, and still go pretty much where the pitcher wants, is astounding.
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.
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.
Late in his career, Greg Maddux’s 2-seamer was practically a screwball.
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.
You know where I grew up when I mention:
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.
3:55
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.