Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels delivers the sweeper pitch a pitch that fools Angels catcher Max Strassi. Catchers have had a tough time handling the pitch this one coming on Jun 9, 2022 (file photo mlb.com)

Baseball 2023: Not only new Rules but a new Pitch, the sweeper

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

By Amaury Pi-González

When Shohei Othani (Japan) struck out his good friend and teammate with the LA Angels Mike Trout (USA) to seal the 2023 World Baseball Classic title for Japan, Shohei did it with a “sweeper” what is always been known as a slider. You can ask any broadcasters and they will tell you that is what a slider is now called in all 30 major league parks this season.

According to baseball statisticians, Shohei Ohtani threw more sweepers in 2022 than any other pitcher. Did they change the slider to sweeper because of the Japanese sensation? Not really, but it is indeed a sweeper now all the time, at every game in every park/city.

I recently spoke with my good friend, Enrique Oliu, Nicaraguan-born Spanish broadcaster for the Tampa Bay Rays, where the Oakland A’s open a series this weekend at Tropicana Field, and he told me; “yes it is a sweeper here in Tampa too”.

So there you have it, like it or not, baseball now has changed the name of one of the most used pitches in baseball. Another good friend told me, “I think baseball is in the mood to change everything since they have set new rules this season also. Maybe the Fuller Sweeper will have a selling re-birth this season.

You probably have heard radio and television announcers using “sweeper” for a slider already, so it might not be news to you, but in the words of many baseball philosophers “it is what it is”. So what is the sweeper? Driveline classified sweepers in 2021: 77mph, 6.5 inches of glove-side movement after 40ft of ball flight, and -two inches of depth after 40ft of ball flight.

In 2021 Fangraphs chart contrasting pitch types by movement depict how the sweeper fits in with other pitches. Driveline is a Data Driven high tech company that lists these as their clients: MLB, NPR, New York Times, Rapsodo, AXE, KMotion and Lululemon.

Some pitching coaches like Peter Maki of the Minnesota Twins speak about one of his best pitchers, Pablo López and his new sweeper pitch and so it goes around baseball with terminology. But to be fair we live in a time of change in language.

Not long ago if an area of the country was going to get hit by a storm, the weather person would call it a “storm” basically “lots of rain and wind”, now they call it “atmospheric river”, basically the same thing but sexier to say. Some other things in our culture are changing, and thinks that were deemed offensive now have changed.

A good example in baseball would be Eddie Gaedel who played with the St Louis Browns in 1 game in 1951; he was the smallest player to ever appear in the history of the major leagues, at 60 pounds and 3 feet 7 inches in height. Not very long ago, he was called a midget, today that is considered an insult. Today the correct way to call Gaedel, would be a “vertically challenged player.”

Whatever Gaedel was called he was very short. The same thing happens with the slider and the sweeper, it is the same thing, but baseball is now in a changing mood, so things get changed for whatever reason, commercially or socially.

The great Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry pitched for 8 different teams in a career from 1962 to 1983, won 314 games, and was the first pitcher ever to win the Cy Young in both leagues. He threw his very famous “spitball”, which would be considered today gross and totally out of all norms.

There is nobody throwing the spitball anymore, although players are famous for spitting during games all the time, but obviously, not on the ball anymore.

In 1849 French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ca change, plus c’est la méme chose” – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Like the great Al Jonson said in the first talkie “The Jazz Singer” in 1919 “You ain’t heard nothing yet”

Wait until AI (Artificial Intelligence) gets hold of baseball.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the lead play by play announcer on the Oakland A’s Spanish radio networks 1010 KIQI San Francisco and 990 KATD Pittsburg and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com