How to Throw a Curveball

If you really want to make a hitter look foolish you must have a curveball in your bag of tricks. The technicalities of a curveball must be followed in order to throw the pitch properly and avoid injury.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A speck of athleticism.

1. Hold the ball with your wrist bent at a 90-degree angle. Your palm should be facing in, toward your body.

2. You must wedge the ball between your thumb and your index and middle fingers. Your middle finger should be pressed tightly against the baseballs seam. The seam of the ball will provide the resistance against your middle finger giving the ball its rotation.

3. 

   When you are releasing the baseball the key is to snap your wrist downward as you release the ball. The back side of your hand should be facing the batter at the end of your motion.

4. You want to maintain a similar arm speed with your curveball that you have with your fastball. Hitters read arm speed.

Tips & Warnings

• Instructional videos can be of great assistance when learning how to throw a cuve.
• Don’t have your child start throwing a curve too early. They may be the Barry Zito of their little league, but it will catch up to them come high school. Throwing a curveballs puts far too much stress on a child’s elbow and arm. You should at least wait until your childs teenage years to teach them this pitch.

[flewstew]

on 3/2/2007 This is terrible the key is not to "snap your writst" thats the key to needing tommy johns surgery and a hanging breaking ball. if you really want to have a good curveball take a lesson from barry zito, or Chris carpenter. the overhand curveball is very effective without the "snap" of a wrist. the key is not to throw this pitch at all but to "spin" it you need to create as much top spin as possible and this is done by putting your hand on the side of the ball with you fingers on top and releasing the pitch above your hand and following through. just do what you can to create as much top spin using the four seams and you will see what i am talking about