Last week Bob Klapisch wrote an interesting article for The Baseball Analysts about pitching in a semi-pro league. He wrote that no feeling in the world “matches making a hitter swing and miss.” The historian Glenn Stout has also played baseball as an adult, also as a pitcher. Here is his take on the allure pitching:

I don’ think it’s so much the feeling you get when a batter swings and misses. What’s addictive is everything you have to do and go through to make a batter swing and miss being confirmed when the batter misses – the swing is confirmation that everything that has come before has been concluded and all is right with that world – or even if it’s not, like when your arm hurts or you know you have nothing, a swing and a miss is sometimes even better then, because you used your brain – mentally and emotionally, you were able to affect the physical world, which is a powerful narcotic. And I think that as pitchers age, this generally gets more pronounced, because when you are young and can just throw the ball past people, so what? But whenever you are pitching at a level where the hitters, or a good number of them, can hit your shit and aren’t overmatched, then you have to use everything. I think I’ve said before that nothing I’ve ever done successfully before has ever required so much physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally at the same time. When it is all working together, it’s the most powerful feeling in the world. There are times you just know that you’re going to get the hitter out, or get out of the inning, or win the game. You don’t get that feeling in the rest of the world very often.

Personally, the times I remember best from pitching are not the dominant games, no-hitters, shutout or high K counts, which were few and far between anyway, but the times where this feeling came or was conjured up at a critical moment, when all was black, or appeared periodically four or five times during a game when all else was struggle. My favorite game ever was facing a team much better than mine, who needed a win to make the playoffs or finish in first place or something, stocked with guys that used to play on my team but left because we (meaning me and the other pitcher we had) weren’t good enough for them. I didn’t give them anything to hit the whole game–I mean I couldn’t, because they’d kill me. Everything had to be on the corner or just off, I had to use their aggressiveness and better ability against them and purposely tried to pitch behind–not recommended procedure–because then they got real anxious.

On virtually every hitter I threw at least one pitch into the ground or wild inside or over their head on purpose. I think I walked four or five, gave up seven or eight hits, was in trouble the whole fucking game, right on the edge and margin then whole time, and they were getting madder and madder and madder as the game went on because just about every inning there were people on first or second or bases loaded with one or two outs, but in that game, that was the only time I could really make my pitches, and I kept getting out of it. The last inning I was so fucking giddy that the guys on my team wanted to know what I was smoking–I mean I was laughing out there, because I knew I had them, that no matter what, I was gonna win. So two on two out, 3-2, with a 3-2 or 4-3 lead and their best hitter up, a guy I hated who generally slaughtered me. So totally on purpose I threw a little shit curve up in zone that he jumped out of his shoes to get to, virtually hung the pitch. And he was too late, screaming as he swung. Strike three, ballgame, and when I walked off the mound I was probably certifiable–I mimed a tightrope walker and walked off heel and toe in the arms out Christ on the cross position. They fucking wanted to kill me. When shit like that happens, you feel bulletproof. Of course, you also know you’re likely to get killed the next time you pitch, but that’s why you keep going out.

To me, the only thing that compares is the feeling you sometimes get while writing, more so poetry than prose. Every once in a while, you just know the words will be there. Or you’re stuck and they come. You’re gonna make your pitch and its coming across without apparent effort. But you miss the physical part, the drain at the end, the game that goes on in your head for the next day or so as you re-play the whole thing over and over and over again.