IN LEHMAN'S TERMS: Essence of Curveball Hard to Capture

My most loyal readers know I’ve done this before.

Tried participatory journalism. Put the I in Crimson sports. Plimp’ed my write.

Last spring, I attended practice with the Harvard softball team. Shagged some flies, went 0-for-5 in home run derby. This time around, I was more goal-oriented.

I wanted to learn how to throw a curveball. Uncle Charlie, the deuce, number two, the hook. It goes by many names but is singular in its appeal—the prettiest pitch in baseball, with its tantalizing slowness and sharp downward break.

For all the physics majors out there, I hear it has to do with the Magnus effect. Or maybe the Bernoulli effect. When it works, it replicates the desired effect of a well-crafted pick-up line: it makes the recipient go weak in the knees.

Covering the baseball team this season, I realized I could hope for no better a local instructor than right-handed sophomore ace Shawn Haviland, who features a devastating curve as his out pitch. (The lefty curve is something slightly different, more sweeping.) So I gracefully invited myself to get a tutorial from Haviland, who, with Coach Joe Walsh’s blessing, politely obliged my wacky request.

Now, the last time I threw a serious bullpen session was when I was 12 years old, warming up for my start in the Greenwich Village Little League semifinals against the Cardinals and their feared six-foot slugger, Jonathan Trotman. I threw a complete game and got the win, probably the high point of my athletic career. In those days, I boasted an impressive array of pitches: slow and slower. I was more concerned with location, working the corners of the super-wide strike zone and making sure I didn’t walk the runny-nosed number eight hitter who had absolutely no intention of moving the bat from his shoulder.

Other kids experimented with a slider, which usually just meant they were throwing sidearm, or imagined they could throw a splitter if they could...just...fit their fingers around the ball, or proclaimed “Yo, did you see the movement on that knuckleball!” And there were plenty of curveball dilettantes.

I was never seduced. Until now.

Now that I had watched, with contentment, from immediately behind O’Donnell Field’s backstop, a steady stream of Ancient Eight hitters hang their heads and drag their bats back to the dugout after watching another deceptive curveball break over the heart of the plate for called strike three. Now that I knew my pubescent wrist wouldn’t shatter if I tried to snap one off. Now that I could be sure Trotman wouldn’t turn on a hanger.

But, alas, I will have to wait for another day to fashion myself into a legitimate two-pitch pitcher—no Plimpton this week. The elements intervened, causing Harvard’s game against Northeastern to preempt the Wednesday practice I intended to appear at. Haviland did not make the trip, staying behind to prepare for his Saturday start in Game One of the Ivy Championship Series, so he could not provide counsel.

In the dugout before the game, utility man and sometimes reliever Max Warren showed me several of the most common curveball grips. He said I had to apply pressure with my middle finger and spin the ball off that digit. He advised me, though, to borrow a ball and see what grip suited me best.

Later, in a post-game interview, junior Jake Bruton, on the heels of two scoreless innings in which he displayed a ruthless curveball, admitted that freezing a hitter with a curve is “one of the best feelings ever.”

On the way home, lacking a catcher, a live batter, and the rudiments of curveball expertise, I chucked a few yakkers off a brick wall outside the Kennedy School, chasing that feeling.

***

All this musing about curveballs got me thinking in quite another, more serious, direction. The curveball is among the host of baseball terms that has been appropriated as metaphor in the common parlance. It connotes a sudden, unexpected turn of events.

Last spring, my family was confronted with a curveball of grave proportions. My grandmother was diagnosed with two forms of cancer. Since then, she has endured multiple surgeries and a brutal round of chemotherapy, all with a brave face and immeasurable dignity. She arranged her treatment schedule to be able to prepare our annual Thanksgiving feast and attend my little sister’s Bat Mitzvah. Although she has been sapped of her strength, she has not been robbed of her customary biting wit. I’ve heard her continue to tease my grandfather, as is her wont, but haven’t yet heard her complain.

In fact, she has done such a tremendous job of transcending her illness that I’ve been uncomfortable mentioning it and haven’t been able to find the words to express how proud I am of her. Until now. Love you, Nana.

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.