A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a game between the Mets and the Diamondbacks. Randall Delgado was pitching for Arizona and the always informative Mets announcers (there really is no finer crew of team broadcasters than Gary Cohen/Ron Darling/Keith Hernandez) mentioned that Delgado is a throwback to the old days with his pitching delivery. Delgado starts his pitching motion with his hands above his head. I'm not terribly observant about things like this, and it occurred to me when Cohen was saying this that "hey yeah, pitchers don't do that anymore, do they?" If you look at video of the best pitchers from the time I first started watching baseball, the majority seemed to begin their pitching motion with throwing hand and glove meeting above their head. Go look at the tape. Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Don Sutton, Catfish Hunter. They all do this. By spending just 20 minutes or so on youtube, I guessed that this practice began to die out in the ...
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