Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Hurting Yourself For A Living

I'm off about baseball again, because politics is making my skin crawl again.

And something  I saw during the World Series gave me a painful feeling as well.
It was a slow motion replay of San Francisco Giants pitcher  Madison Bumgarner throwing his slider.
It hurt me to watch somebody's elbow turn that way and reminded me how unnatural pitching a baseball -- as opposed to just throwing one -- is. It hurt my arm to try to mimic that motion slowly.

And that's why the starting pitcher only goes every fourth or fifth day -- he needs the time off to heal the damage he's done to himself.

That's why Carl Hubbell, baseball's greatest screwball pitcher, shocked his colleagues in the Hall of Fame by showing up for the festivities each year with an arm permanently deformed by his pet pitch. With his arms hanging at his sides, the palm of his left hand faced outward.

It's why possibly the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball, Sandy Koufax, retired at 30 because he couldn't stand the pain anymore.

Because every pitcher injures himself every time he pitches.

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