Click images for desktop size: "Dark Day II" by Benny Every pitcher I've ever known has had the same mind set as a Weakside Line Backer on a run blitz.
Justin Verlander just threw a no hitter for the Tigers a couple of weeks ago. It still resonates. That's one of the things I love about baseball. The game stays the same forever. A no hitter today conjures memories of every no hitter before it. It augments the legend and illuminates the beauty of one man and his team rising to a level of perfection. And it makes perfection real and attainable.
Verlander got his no hitter the way I like them, with 100 mile an hour fastballs.
The last no hitter I saw was in person was Nolan Ryan's, way back when he was a California Angel. Ryan threw the hundred mile an hour fastball. HE had the rep of being a "nice" guy. He also had a rep for having control problems. Control problems - One of Ryan's records is striking out the side on 9 pitches. No fouled balls, just 9 pitches in a row three batters couldn't even touch. That isn't a control problem.
I always figured that Ryan kept the control problem ruse going to give him an edge. You know a 100 mph fastball can kill you, break bones if it hits you. If you were facing a guy who had control problems you're going to have to work awfully hard to on concentrating after the first pitch slips away from him and comes at you head high and behind you.
I think the ruse was more effective than Don Drysdale's. Drysdale's wasn't a ruse though. Drysdale remembered anyone who got a game winning hit off of him and then would proceed to intimidate, head hunt and humiliate you for the rest of your career. Batters really had to decide how much they wanted to win when Drysdale was on the mound.
How much simpler and saner to have "control problems". How much more intimidating when you never know when death's retaliation will come hurtling down at you.
He was a beautiful pitcher and one of the best I've ever seen.
The first no hitter I'd ever seen was Sandy Koufax's perfect game. I was 7 or 8. My grandfather took me that day. Back then I played baseball at the parks or empty lots, always running through my batter's litany (which I ran through even at my last game). Keep the label up. Don't close you eyes when you swing. Drop the bat, don't throw it before you run down to first.
Even with that limited knowledge Koufax was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. When I caught my first 6 foot peeler a few years later Koufax was the reference point I used to describe that waves beauty, power and elegance.
When I look at art I see few that can compare and only a handful of paintings or sculptures that can stand up to the glory of Koufax in the 9th inning of that game.
I was a decent hitter. Like most batters I divide the strike zone into a base 9 sectioned rectangle (High, low, middle - inside, outside, middle) and then I quarter each section. I know where I can hit the ball in that diagram. I know where I can't hit it. The diagram shifts depending on the umpires view of the strike zone and then shifts again depending on the speed and delivery of the pitcher.

Click images for desktop size: "I'm All Ears" by Unknown I think Koufax saw the strike zone as a series of floating dots, the size of dimes. He remembered what you did to the ball the last times you were at the plate and marked it down in his head, then he threw the ball to the dot where he knew you couldn't do anything with it.
When I was in my 20's a friend got a coaching job in San Luis Opisbo. He got a house in Half Moon Bay. His next door neighbor was Sandy Koufax. I went up there and we spent a Saturday watching Koufax practice his golf swing, mess around in his yard. It was a remarkable day.
Later my friend got friendly with Koufax and said I should come up for a BBQ or something like that and meet him. I didn't. I never wanted to talk to him. What if he didn't like me? Or, far worse, what if I didn't like him? He was a work of art, a monument. I couldn't have lived if he'd just been a man.
On Wednesday I have to go to the hospital for some tests. There was a delay to schedule me for "the machines". I'm not fond of machines where they strap me down naked underneath it while they put on lead aprons, welding masks then stand behind 6 inches of lead impregnated glass and another wall of solid lead. ZI'm not so stupid that I don't know its safer to back there with them!
The tests are for some weird numbness in my right arm. No stroke or heart attack. The easy answers gone they go to the machines. I only have to pay the same 20 bucks as for a regular doctor visit so its cool.
Worse is that one of the dogs I cared for Memorial Day weekend has "offended" his owner. He wants to dump her and sees no correlation between his treatment of her and the way she is. I threatened him. I can still draw the fire so maybe he'll listen. I doubt it but he does know I'll carry through if the puppy suddenly "runs away".
And the next door neighbors and I had a set to. Two dogs gone, one dead from being mistreated, another found running down a busy street (8 week old tiny puppy). There's a 3rd dog living there . . . as abused as the others.
I made my point with them but cowards who take their hate and neglect out on an innocent tiny puppy aren't capable of listening.
My ride just showed up for volleyball.

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