Do You Believe In Santa Claus? In Superman? I Do!

The subject matter at hand? The GYRO. The maybe real but probably fictional pitch that Daisuke Matzuka MIGHT possess. This is from MSNBC, and the entire funny and illuminating article is linked in the usual place...the title! Read a little. I'll be back...

"I believe it is a screwball," says Buck Martinez, who managed the U.S. team in last spring's World Baseball Classic, for which Japan's Matsuzaka was named most valuable player.
"It's a changeup," says Robert Kemp Adair, professor emeritus of physics at Yale and author of The Physics of Baseball. "Put another way, it's basically nonsense."
"This pitch," says Alan Nathan, a physics professor at the University of Illinois and a specialist in the study of baseball physics, "is something like a cut fastball but with more drop to it."
Well, that clears it up. (Peter here...now the "illusion" is more complete! Read on...)

"But it gets even more confusing because the gyroball Matsuzaka is supposedly throwing in grainy videos that have been a staple of Internet chatter for years is, in fact, his excellent slider -- one of six "traditional" pitches he is known to throw.
Of course, this mystery could be cleared up if Matsuzaka were more forthcoming about his use (or nonuse) of the gyroball. But he obviously enjoys the cat-and-mouse game -- and whatever psychological edge it offers -- too much to come clean."

Again, it's me. And as a psychological, maybe fictional weapon, we all know that the fact that the gyroball is a part of his pitch selection will make better and more confusing ANY sequence of pitches our future ace will come up with tonight, and in the years to come. I know he has to learn the American hitters who he has never faced. He also has to learn the ways of this new, to him, country. He AND his family. But he's got the stuff.....he has what he needs. And what we'll see as this 2007 baseball season develops will be one for the ages. And those are just my thoughts, an inner feeling. The Man can do it, and I want to be there, just to see!
ENJOY!!!