Fastball

ED: If you’re just joining us, this is BackStory. And we’ve been looking at some of the different ways that speed has come into play in American history. For our final story, we’re going to turn to a sport which, frankly, is probably not the first one you think of when you think of speed– baseball. People, in fact, often complain about the game’s sluggish pace.

But you may be surprised to hear that Americans have not always thought about baseball that way. John Thorn is major league baseball’s official historian. And he says that in the beginning, part of baseball’s appeal was that it was fast, at least compared to its main competition, cricket.

JOHN THORN: Baseball was referred to as “the lightning game,” and you did not have to have a full day available and the ability to take a two-hour break at lunch and then resume play in the afternoon. This is a game that you could play in two hours, and that you could, if you wished, join with your comrades for a game of ball prior to going to work in the morning in the summer.

BRIAN: These days, baseball games clock in at an average of just over three hours. And just this year, major league baseball instituted new rules to cut down on that time. Batters now have to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box between pitches. And a limit will be imposed on pitchers’ warmup time between innings.

ED: As it turns out, these aren’t the first attempts to shorten the game. Early on, balls and strikes were not called, so batters could wait around for a perfect pitch. And pitchers had little reason to throw one. The so-called strike was instituted in 1858, the ball a few years later. John Thorn supports the latest quickening efforts, but points out that the main thing slowing down games is commercials.

He says that the new rules do seem to be reining in the length of the games, so far shaving off about eight minutes, but aren’t really affecting the game’s pace.

JOHN THORN: For me, that is the enduring pleasure of baseball, not only that it permits you to reflect and observe every aspect of the game in isolation, but it gives opportunity for conversation. And it is the spur to memory. The pause between plays is what imprints the plays on your mind.

If you try to make baseball like basketball or hockey, then it’s no longer baseball. And then it’s like the mouse who wished to fly and becomes not a bird but a bat, and that is anathema to all.

BRIAN: Reflecting on all of this, we got to wondering how the speed of the game registered to the players on the diamond. So I got in touch with the person who used to control that speed at the major league level.

BILL LEE: Hi, this is Bill Lee, AKA the space man. I am a pitcher, still to this day at the age of 69.

BRIAN: Bill “Spaceman” Lee pitched for the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos from the late 1960s to the early ’80s. He’s beloved by fans for his play, but also for his unfiltered and colorful off-field persona. I asked him to begin by describing his pitching style.

BILL LEE: I would say it was reluctant. I didn’t want to– [LAUGHS] I didn’t want to be a pitcher. I wanted to be a ball player, but I happened to be able to throw strikes. I worked fast, kept the ball down, kept the ball in the ballpark, made the game have a little pace to it, which is what usually brings about good play.

BRIAN: When you say that you played fast, what does that actually mean on the pitcher’s mound?

BILL LEE: It meant I reduced it to almost like a cardiovascular experience. I kept it within the rhythm of my breathing and my heart. And my mind had no control over it. I did it as a parasympathetic thing. And I think that’s what Rod Dedeaux would run on. He goes, Tiger, Tiger, what are you thinking?

BRIAN: He is a baseball coach, Rod Dedeaux?

BILL LEE: Rod Dedeaux at USC. And I remember I was pitching to a guy from Harvard, Pete Varney. And I was going to walk him intentionally, and thereby putting the go-ahead run on base. And he goes, Tiger, Tiger, what are you thinking? And I go, well, I thought he hit a home run off me earlier.

And he goes, stop right there. Don’t think. Cut your head off. Let your body do the work. I’ll do the thinking here. And from that day on, I kind of worked in a rhythm that Yo-Yo Ma and anybody that is proficient in their work does it at a parasympathetic and not a cerebral cortex level.

BRIAN: And you said it makes other people play better. I’m a baseball fan. I think I know what you mean. But could you explain in a little more detail how pitching fast, playing fast helps everybody on your team?

BILL LEE: Well, it makes them not think also. It makes them have to be reactive, because I’m pitching to contact, thereby at any time the ball’s going to be put in play. And they have to react to that. And they get into a rhythm also.

It just seems to make a better tempo to the game and it forces the hitter to swing. If he thinks every pitch is going to be a strike, he’s not going to be taking pitches because he says, I can hit this pitch.

BRIAN: We’ve been talking about the speed of the game and how you wanted to speed it up, get everything out of your mind. But you’re known for this pitch called the spaceball, which was really slow. I want you to take me through that pitch– the windup, the release, and the results.

BILL LEE: Yes. I developed that pitch after Nettles threw me to the ground in New York and separated my shoulder and I couldn’t throw hard. So if you can’t throw hard, you have to slow down your breaking stuff. So I kind of developed this pitch. And I learned how to throw it. And I learned it was unhittable.

And it takes a big windup. You really speed up your delivery. And then you slow it down by landing, throwing your hips back so that you get more loft, more trajectory, more spin. And then it comes straight down on home plate. And the hitters swing furiously at it and they can’t hit it.

BRIAN: So today, you hear the announcers talk about location, location. You’d think they were real estate agents or something. But it sounds like you think speed is the crucial variable as a pitcher.

BILL LEE: It is. See, the plate is a three-dimensional object and it has a little bit of depth. But if you take time involved and know how to increase the plate to be a six-foot length to the pitcher by slowing down time, you have got much more area to pitch to than the guy that just throws the same speed.

So I have always looked at the plate. And that’s why as I’ve gotten older, my fastball is no longer fast, but I have three different changeups like Stu Miller. And I am hittable. These guys– I play in these 45- and 50-year-old tournaments, they can’t hit me with a paddle because I change space and time and the dimensions by adding and subtracting, instead of in and out.

BRIAN: Bill, I hate to bring it back to something as mundane as a time clock, but what do you think about putting the clock on baseball? Doesn’t that threaten to kind of ruin the very nature of the sport as a timeless sport?

BILL LEE: Yes. You can’t put a clock on it. You get to get rid of the ticks. The fact that you have a producer that tells the pitcher when he can throw the first pitch when the last commercial’s there, you go to a ballpark there’s a clock in the back ticking down. And I’m going, what the hell was that clock yesterday in [? Oakland? ?] And it was all about commercialism and when the guy can throw the first pitch and when the guy points to the pitcher. It’s no longer a game. It’s a sideshow.

BRIAN: Bill “Spaceman” Lee played for the Boston Red Sox from 1969 to 1978 and the Montreal Expos from ’79 to ’82.

[MUSIC – HARRY NILSSON, “SPACEMAN”]

BRIAN: To close out the show today, we have a special treat. We’ve asked international auctioneer champion Paul Ramirez from American Ag Auctions in Arizona to read our credits for us.

PAUL RAMIREZ: Hi, here we go. [AUCTIONEER-LIKE PATTER] BackStory. BackStory is produced today by Tony Tony Field, Nina Nina Earnest, Andrew Parsons, Kelly Jones is there in the corner. Emily Gadek ups the bids. Bruce Bruce Wallace and Robert Armengol. Jamal Millner on the boards. [ACTIONEER-LIKE PATTER] we got help help help from [? Coley ?] [? Elhigh ?].

And special thanks go to David David David Beringer and Lacey Lacey Ward and Tony Tony Field, and the top man in charge, Mr. Andrew Wyndham. [AUCTIONEER-LIKE PATTER] major major support from anonymous donors, the University of Virginia, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph Joseph Joseph and Robert Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis foundation.

[AUCTIONEER-LIKE PATTER] more cash from the Tomato Fund, cultivating fresh ideas in the arts and humanities and the environment, and by the History Channel, history made every [AUCTIONEER-LIKE PATTER] day day [AUCTIONEER-LIKE PATTER].

FEMALE SPEAKER: Brian Balogh is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Peter Onuf is Professor of History Emeritus at UVA, and Senior Research Fellow at Monticello. Ed Ayers is President and Professor of History at the University of Richmond. BackStory was created by Andrew Wyndham for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
MALE SPEAKER: BackStory is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exhchange.