This college pitcher has the most insane pitching windup of all time
There have been wacky pitching motions throughout baseball history. Dontrelle Willis' high kick,
Baseball has a long history full of weird pitchers and their oddball antics, but I don't think we've ever seen anything as wild and as crazy as this video.
Legal? @FlatgroundApp pic.twitter.com/wdh3vjjRKv
— Huff (@CoachHuffEra) February 7, 2019
The magical sorcerer in this video is a dude by the name of Trevin Michael, a 21-year old sophomore at NOC Tonkawa -- a junior college in Oklahoma. Unclear about the actual legality of this maneuver, Michael took to the internet for some help, and we're gonna do our best.
Section 8.01 (a) of the MLB Rulebook (sorry, I don't have a Junior College rulebook at the ready) covers the rules about what seperates a legal windup from an illegal one. Let's go beat by beat to see if Michael's windup passes the test.
"The pitcher shall stand facing the batter, his pivot foot in contact with the pitcher's plate and the other foot free." Check.
"From this position any natural movement associated with his delivery of the ball to the batter commits him to the pitch without interruption or alteration." Ok this one is a bit iffy. An umpire could determine that Michael's spin is not a "natural movement," but he doesn't stop the motion at any point so there's no interruption of alteration to speak of.
"He shall not raise either foot from the ground, except that in his actual delivery of the ball to the batter, he may take one step backward, and one step forward with his free foot." This checks out.
So, as long as an umpire deems this a "natural movement" and Michael's right foot maintains contact with the rubber throughout his windup, he should be allowed to do his thing. Still, we're not entirely sure, so we'll leave it up to you to vote below:
We were curious about how Michael came up with his wonderful circus twirl, so we reached out to him to find out more about how his outside-the-box windup got started.
Cut4: How'd you come up with the idea?
Michael: "It's funny actually, me and my roommate were in the weight room and talking about different ways to throw a hitter's timing off and I did it. Then I started wondering if I could actually make it happen in a game."
How long did it take you to be able to do it so fluidly?
"I already do the double leg kick, quick pitch, and a hitched motion to throw off timing, so this was actually pretty easy to do.
Can you really throw strikes consistently like this?
"I threw this 4 times in my bullpen and every time I was 88-89 and in the zone and I really think i could do it in a game for strikes."
Do you plan to actually use it in a game?
"I think I could use it in a game, as long as it's legal! I want to use it in a game and my coach said it's cool with him as long as it's legal. I would only do it a couple times in the game to disrupt timing along with a series of other timing changes."
So stay tuned folks, if Michael actually does this in a game he'll likely be making baseball history. If any video comes out, we'll be sure to let you know about it.
