Unwinding the Mysteries of the Gyroball

Great article. That "physics of baseball" guy sure likes to take the fun out of everything, doesn't he? Typical of 95% of scientists.

What I found the most interesting were the naming of names. Watanabe, Kawajiri, Umetsu, and Hoshino (Lions) were all named as gyroballers. They all throw very slow fastballs from the side or submarine.

Since I run the video game section of the forums, I'd like to share this tidbit. In most of the modern Konami yakyu games, both Watanabe and Matsuzaka had a gyroball attribute. They weren't actual breaking balls, though. All it did was add 7 km/h (give or take) in perceived speed to the fastball. So I guess even the games are confused as to what a gyroball really is.

In the comic book world, the gyroball plays a big role in the manga called Major. A few ace pitchers in high school, including the main character, all throw gyros. It's represented as a fastball with the football spin. It doesn't break, but it's supposed to be very difficult to hit. Here is opening video of the anime's 3rd season [YouTube].

I love the way Dice-K is ambiguously handling the situation, essentially saying he might have thrown the gyroball but doesn't exactly remember.

He may also want to add to his mystical repertoire the "Killer L-Curve" and the "Phantom Beanball Pitch" developed by the "legendary" Team Astro [TV Asahi]. Opposing batters like Hideki Matsui would then have no choice but to counter with the "Giacobini Meteor Shower Swing where the batter steps up to the plate with a cracked bat, which splinters into a thousand shards (like a meteor shower!) and plays havoc with the defense."