KNUCKLEBALL

Knuckleball

A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown so as to minimize the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion. The lack of spin causes vortices over the stitched seams of the baseball during its trajectory, which in turn can cause the pitch to change direction—and even corkscrew—in mid-flight. This makes the pitch difficult for batters to hit, but also difficult for pitchers to control and catchers to catch; umpires are challenged as well, since following the path of the ball makes it difficult to call balls and strikes.

The above text is a snippet from Wikipedia: Knuckleball
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knuckleball

Noun

  1. A pitch thrown with the ball gripped on the fingertips and released with no rotation which travels over an unpredictable path to the plate due to micro-turbulence in the air.
    Even the pitcher doesn't know where his knuckleball is going.
    Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield is best known for his use of the knuckleball.
  2. An event that is hard to predict.
    Our vendor keeps throwing us knuckleballs.

Verb

  1. To pitch knuckleballs.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: knuckleball
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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