Underarm pitching

Don't know of any off the top of my head.

One caution. When throwing sidearm or submarine, many pitchers tend to supinate the wrist. Your son will need to work hard on still staying behind the ball and not supinating. Otherwise, elbow problems could follow.

quote:

My son, 15, is interested in learning to pitch underarm/submarine

He certainly won't generate as much speed throwing that way and may be relegated to relief roles even if he masters the technique.

You're right. You read very little about the subject.

micdsguy,

Which rule prohibits underhand pitching? One of my dad's (he's 85) favorite stories is about a guy in the old Pacific Coast league in the 30's? who pitched underhand--softball style--and was very successful, at least with the batters. Supposedly, he was faster than any of the overhand throwers. According to my dad, he was famous at that time..the Pacific Coast League was akin to the majors on the East Coast.. but his problem was that he couldn't hold the runners without balking. Dad says this guy came into his tavern years later with a "Eureka" moment after about 7 beers and claimed to have figured out how to overcome the balk problem. Unfortunately, dad never got him to explain. It was closing time.

When I was a kid, I used to hear stories that the top male softballers were as fast or faster than baseball pitchers. I wonder.

Women underarm pitchers are very slow. 70 is about tops even in Olympic softball. All these male softball fireballers were around before radar. Modern baseball submariners top out around 80 as far as I know. I guess it's possible that underarm might be faster than submarine style.

Must say I'm dubious about anyone throwing underarm in the majors. (maybe it was legal years ago). But I've never heard of it and that's something I'd remember.


Any softball experts around?

Go back & read some of the earlier history. There were underhand pitchers in the MLB.

Maybe I'm wrong about underarm being illegal. Wikipedia says:

"True underhanded pitching is not illegal in Major League Baseball. However, it is difficult to generate enough velocity and movement with the underhand motion."

Did more research on the subject. Underarm doesn't appear to be illegal. Therefore I removed my statements that it was. Don't want some kid finding that error in Google and reposting it everywhere.

I may have been confused with this quote from MLB rules:

"Legal pitching delivery. There are two legal pitching positions, the Windup Position and the Set Position, and either position may be used at any time."