Tampa, Florida					Monday, September 06, 2010

The Perfessor Explains The Larsen, Which Is To Say, the No-Wind-up Pitch
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
TAMPA—Go back with me in time, in memory or prompted imagination, 48 years ago to this week and let’s learn a baseball history lesson, with some facts provided as a start, and some facts as a finish. The Ole Perfessor, New York Yankee Manager Casey Stengel is standing with admired New York sports writer Dan Daniel, who also wrote a column for the then widely read Sporting News ($10 a year) watching pitchers exercising, but surely without exertion, at Miller Huggins Field in St. Petersburg. The Yankees trained there then, with team headquarters at the old Sereno Hotel. The Cincinnati Reds trained in Tampa, at the time spring training headquarters, for the departed Governor’s Baseball Dinner had just been held at the also now departed Tampa Terrace Hotel. Yes, as now, spring training was full bloomed in its annual spring rights, as it training is now, though now are in their 10th years of training in a fine complex in Tampa. The Reds now train in Sarasota. But on that March morning in 1957, there stood writer Daniel and manager-philosopher Stengel, Daniel would report a couple of days later in his Sporting News Column, then titled “Over The Fence,” Stengel, doubtless with both hands in his rear Pinstriped pockets, explaining his latest theories to Daniel, who took the notes, as best he could. Stengel was speaking in Stengelese, as it was widely titled. This but a lift of much of the Sporting News Dan Daniel report of that typical by-play between the Perfessor and his writer student passed on to the News readers of that day. Identified by Daniel as Perfessor Charles Dillon Stengel, began the subject by telling Daniel, “It will be interesting. Stengel then “branched off and into a clinical talk on tight baseball shoes and their effect on the brain,’’ while Daniel waited for the subject Stengel had previously introduced by his, “It will be interesting.’’ Daniel wondered what would be interesting to Stengel that March morning in St. Pete as the pitchers exercised but did not exert. They still do not at that time in time. “Pitching in this training season. I want to see how many of them hurlers, which they saw Don Larsen’s success without a windup will copy his delivery. After the World Series, I hear that pitchers on every club saw Don Larsen’s success without a windup will copy is delivery. After the World Series I hear that pitchers on every club in the majors are going for the no-windup, and now, how many actually will go through with it.’’ Larsen had pitched his masterpiece the year before, the perfect game in the 1956 win over the Dodgers to win the World Series—perfect, facing only 27 batters. “Mr. Berra,’’ returning to the Daniel piece on Stengel on March 13, 1957, “which is my informant on things going on, says that many pitchers will start the season with no-windup and throw the thing away before long. He says that pitching without a windup is not natural. “Now Mr. Berra, which is smart in many things, could have the right dope on this. His remark that pitching minus the windup is against the nature is very likely true. Give a kid a ball, and what does he do? He winds up and then throws. Try it with a child of 5 or 6. The human tendency is to wind up,’’ Daniel quotes Stengel as concluding. Stengel and Daniel are no longer around. Berra is an invited instructor these 48 years later in the Yankee camp for owner George Steinbrenner and the field manager of today Joe Torre. Baseball students not importantly informed of manager Stengel’s manner and speaking style will notice a frequent change of pace, of tenses, of time, even of subject, some make little sense of any of it. Didn’t and doesn’t matter. His language often was his own and the only hitch I found—and yes, I covered him—was not to be absolutely sure I got it right….that I got it right as he spoke it…right maybe, as we thought we heard it. Likely it can be concluded that only he knew always what he was saying, and if you did not and you did not report it correctly, Same, but, sorry, it was there to report as he felt he was reporting it. And he kept reporting it to Daniel that day, with patience. “Now, let me ask you to do me a favor (Daniel). Don’t write it like I said that any pitcher which he doesn’t use a windup ain’t human. “Now leave us to consider the nature of this here no-windup. I did not tell Larsen to us it late last season when we were in Boston. Jim Turner doesn’t tell him, either. It	seems Larsen gets the idea, no doubt founded in fact more than suspicion that Del Baker, the Boston pitcher is reading him, stealing his signs, and calling his fast ball. “So Larsen says to Yogi, ‘I am going to fool that I am going without a windup. So Larsen sprang this no wind-up and turned in a whale of a delivery, which he made the Red Sox and Baker daffy and then in the World Series, Larsen hurled that perfect game. “Well, you sit down and say, ‘How much did Larsen owe to say Larsen owe to his no-windup, and how much to his general repertoire, if that is the word, and how much to the other causes?’ “There is no question that pitching without a windup is very baffling to the batters, which are not used to it, and maybe if they get to see more of it for a who, who knows? “One thing we have to realize. Pitching without the windup is not going to fool anybody if the stuff and the control ain’t there. You don’t get major leaguers out and merely by not winding up. It’s more complex. “Generally speaking, I would say that to use the no-windup delivery you have to be big and have a strong arm. You have to be able to deliver your fast ball with the power of your arm alone, and have pounds and strength behind it. It’s great for a big guy like Larsen, or a pitcher like Bob Turley, which he also is pitching that way. However, many years ago I see a little guy work without the windup and he drives us crazy. He just stands there wiggling up curves. He could not knock you hat off, but he was smart and he could break off jug handles, so he had something important. So you have to say you need size and a strong arm, except that sometimes a pitcher could make it work without either. Only he would have to have something special, and control. “It may be that the no-windup pitching will be more prevalent and more successful than Mr. Berra thinks. Turley says without the windup, he feels his control is better. He tells me when he winds up and throws the leg high into the air he can lose the target and gets thrown way off the strike zone,’’ Daniel quotes Stengel. “There is,’’ Stengel said to Daniel, “another thing which nobody seems to be considering. A lot of the effect of the no-windup is psychological. The old psychology works both ways, on the pitcher, who thinks he has a magic weapon, and on the batter, who thinks he is up against a very dangerous new thing. So let’s see how this thing works out. “Of course, pitching without a windup is nothing new. I see that stuff early in my career, which ain’t going as far back as Hoss Radbourne, but it is long enough. Years ago, there is a pitcher named in the National League name of Patsy Flaherty, which this guy drives you nutty. He takes no wind-up and you never know when he is gonna throw the ball. He is the all-time master of the quick delivery. “In them days there ain’t no rule like we have now, to force the pitcher to come to a full stop. Patsy picks up the ball and you hear the ump holler, ‘Srike!’ “In fact, the quick, no-windup pitch is called the Patsy Flaherty. Like you writers may now call the no-windup a Larsen. I’m hitting against this Flaherty, which I don’t like, and next thing I know he has walloped me in the solar plexus with a fast ball. I was digging in and had no idea the man was ready to pitch. Well, in two, three months we may be able to say that Don Larsen and his no-windup revolutionizes the majors, and the minors as well. “Funny thing. Before Don thinks this up, who says that he is a brainy guy. This is something else nobody writes about. “In other words, ball players are funny people. And now, let’s watch this here Turley and see how things are going with him.’’ Clearly they were going well. While Larsen had pitched his historic perfect game in the fifth game of the 1956 World Series. Turley, by the way, that year of 1957 for which he was preparing as Daniel interviewed the Perfessor and checked him out with the use of the new Larsen was in the middle of a fine six-year run of leading the Yanks in right-handed pitching with the sensational 21-7 1958 season. And Berra was Berra throughout all of The Larsen (no wind-up) discovery and application. He was also earning an astounding $58,000, with a $2,000 raise, in this 1957 season. The inventor of The Larsen earned $76,000.. Them was the days, The Perfessor may have said to Dan Daniel, wasn’t they? ##
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