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When I was 10 and learning to pitch, I was fascinated by the prospect of being able to throw a baseball that CURVED.
In 1948, that was my version of Harry Potter.
My friend Ken could do it. With a softball. He could stand 20 feet away and throw it at me and it would make a big lazy loop. I could see the sideways spin on the ball.
I sent away for a booklet. The ad promised I would learn how to do all sorts of tricks with a baseball. There would be photos. Well, when the booklet arrived, I saw the photos were dark. So dark I couldn’t even see how the pitcher’s hand was holding the ball.
So I learned on my own.
I knew a snap of the wrist was involved. Hold the ball off-center, put a couple fingers off-center, and curve the wrist as you release the ball. It took me about a month, but one day I finally got the knack. I could make a baseball BEND.
Just as important, I could watch it curve as it traveled to the plate. I doubt the engineers at Canaveral were more excited seeing their rocket lift off the pad.
See, a ball isn’t supposed to bend in flight. It’s supposed to go straight. I could make it do something out of sync with Natural Law.
Not only that—I was able to throw different curves. Eventually. Big slow roundhouses. Sideways slants. Overhand drops. And best of all, sharp breakers: it’s here and then bang, it’s there.
I mean, come on. For a while, life itself consisted of the curve. What else could a kid want?
One day—I was 11—I was pitching for a local team and the wind was blowing hard straight at me. It occurred to me the wind would slow the ball down and somehow make it curve more. I could throw the pitch in a direction way off the plate, the wind would stop it, and then the curve would be huge. But there was a risk of embarrassment. If I was wrong, I would throw a crazy wild pitch that would miss the plate and batter and the catcher by a mile and I would look ridiculous. But I was determined. So I wound up and threw the pitch in the wrong direction. Lo and behold, it DID seem to stop in mid-air, and then it swerved fast and viciously IN and right over the plate. STRIKE, the umpire said. Magic on a whole new level. Wind, the ball, and me.
Power.
Confidence.
At the age of 85, I think I could still go out in the yard and throw a curve.
I’ll bet some of you figured out how to do a trick as a kid. A thing you knew was out of the ordinary. And when you had mastered it, you got a jolt. And you were, from that moment on, different than you’d been before.
That’s real.
Realer than real.
-- Jon Rappoport
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