Don't Call It A Curveball

(CBS)  A town baseball field in Farmington, Connecticut, may seem about as far away from the major leagues as you can get. But it's been witness to baseball history recently, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason.

Minor league pitcher Steve Palazzolo is learning to throw what some claim is the first new pitch in a generation. It's called the "gyroball." True believers claim it's almost un-hittable.

"We know that a curveball curves and a slider slides and a screwball …does what a screwball does," said sportswriter Will Carroll.

What a Gyroball does, according to Carroll, is tip the balance of power from hitters to pitchers.

"It takes a hard left turn," says Carroll, referring to the gyroball.

A turn designed on a computer, not a diamond, by scientist Ryutaro Himeno in Tokyo. Now it's rumored to be the secret weapon of some Japanese pitchers. The key is a football-like spiral spin that's easy to learn but hard to master.

"Of course anyone can pitch a gyroball if they practice," says Himeno, a computer scientist at the University of Tokyo.

But on this side of the Pacific, it's been as elusive as extraterrestrials. That is until Carroll got his hands on a copy of the Japanese research.

"I'm not the only guy who saw the UFO," Carroll tells Mason. "I'm the guy who can call them."

While Palazzolo's fastball takes a straight path to home plate, his gyroball, if he gets the right spin, will dart to the right.

In baseball slang, it's one nasty pitch.

"Steve's is breaking a good foot and a half to two feet," says Carroll of Palazzolo's gyroball.

For an expert opinion, we took our video to Yankee Stadium and Al Leiter, a retired major league pitcher and Yes Network analyst.

"Alright, so he has a curveball grip and he pulls down on the ball," said Leiter after viewing Palazzolo's gyroball. "I threw one of these and I called it a cutter. They can call it want they want. It's a cut fastball."

That kind of skepticism hasn't stopped Will Carroll from believing in the gyroball gospel, even if there's chance something was lost in translation.

"Somewhere out there is a guy who will learn to pick it up and it's going to be his out pitch," says Carroll. "And what's that mean for a guy – 10, 15 million?"

If he's right, the Japanese import with the funny spin might just revolutionize America's past time.

[docpeter-2009]

This sounds like a pitch my son accidently discovered for himself when he was about 12 years old, 11 years aor so ago. While practicing his pitching he became bored and was trying different ways of holding and throwing a fast ball. I was surprised when the pitch came fast and all of a sudden broke to my right about 12 inches and dropped about 2 inches. It was a really wicked looking pitch from tha catcher's point of view, especially when you are not expecting it.