The Screwball - Baseball's Vanishing Pitch

[Kibbee Nayee]

Red Flag #1: Cuellar was a screwballer. What this means is that he was essentially a right-handed pitcher, the screwball being the exact opposite of a cuveball. So I would argue that he's not applicable.

...

This is why there is beer and arguments in bars.

Both of which I absolutely love....

Fuzzying up Cuellar's screwball a tad, batters had the tendency to hit it downward because it had predictable downward movement on the way to the plate. It's a bit like a slider to righthanded hitters, although if you have a good slider, you don't need a screwgie. Almost nothing is harder to hit for a righthanded hitter than a lefty's slider biting in under his hands.

Later in the 1970s, a true "Screwball" named Bill Lee pitched for the Red Sox. The last of the great screwgie pitchers were guys like Fernando Valenzuela and Tug McGraw, more or less. Come about the year 2000 or so, the screwball vanished from the game.

[DonRocks]

Come about the year 2000 or so, the screwball vanished from the game.

Thanks for this link, Kibbee.

"The Mystery Of The Vanishing Screwball" by Bruce Schoenfeld on nytimes.com is emblematic of why that is perhaps the last great daily city newspaper. What an article!

As a possessive 1966-1983 Orioles fan, I think Mike Cuellar deserved a mention in the article - something more than his misspelled 1975 Topps baseball card. Cuellar was a 4-time 20-game winner, and had won the Cy Young Award in 1969, and Topps misspells his name! But this is a personal agenda speaking; the article is *fantastic*.