Word: pitch
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ayckbourn can spot the shifting pressures of money and status with a barometric eye. His ear has perfect pitch for the recycled banalities that pass for conversation and the kind of gossip that stirs marital tempests in provincial teapots. Rarely have Ayckbourn's intelligence, nimble comic flair and sympathetic imagination been more acutely on display than in Absent Friends, which gets a rousingly animated U.S. premiere at Washington's Kennedy Center...
...Says he: "I can tell by the rotation whether it's a curve, slider or fastball." What is more, Carew can often actually see the ball hit his bat. Kansas City Outfielder Amos Otis has a hitter's respect for the Carew eye: "Trying to sneak a pitch past him is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster." Says the New York Yankees' Catfish Hunter, who has been the premier pitcher of the American League since 21-year-old Carew was Rookie of the Year in 1967: "He has no weakness as a hitter. Pitch...
...holes, Carew has four different stances, two for lefthanded pitchers, two for righthanded pitchers. His varying postures at the plate break with baseball tradition. Batters generally tinker with their stances only when in the dire despond of an extended slump; Carew alters his to fit the pitcher and the pitching tactics. Whatever his stance, it is taken as deep in the batter's box as he can get. If opposing catchers are not wary, he will move so deep that his left foot is completely-and illegally-out of the box. Says Carew: "The further back...
Despite his strength and bat speed, Carew completely avoids the modern hitter's greatest weakness: the instinct to pull the pitch on the shortest line to the nearest fence. The lust for the long ball and the glory of homers has contributed as much to the decline in high-average hitters in the post-World War II era as the oft-cited rise of relief pitching. Trying to cream a fastball low and away is a sure way to strike...
...Carew in this fine summer. To be a hitter so confident that you turn down offers from teammates and coaches to steal signs and telegraph you the next pitch. "It doesn't matter what the pitch is-I'll get my cut at it." To know that if you do hit .400, the season of '77 will be remembered as the one that belonged to Rod Carew. And to know that, .400 season or not, your place in the history of your sport is already secure. "He doesn't have to prove anything," says Manager Mauch...