Nothing has more allure in baseball circles than a power arm -- somebody who throws the hell out of the ball, whipping fastballs with velocity between 95 and 100 mph. If some hard-throwing kid arrives in spring training amid advance notice, the coaches and staff members will find an excuse to be on the same field to watch the first time he throws batting practice, and suddenly the cage will be surrounded, like a light surrounded by swirling moths.
And if the pitcher with the power arm also has the ability to mix in a deceptive off-speed pitch, well, that's a dream. I'd bet that most players older than 30 years old, along with every coach and every manager and scout, could tell you exactly where they were when
Kerry Wood struck out 20 Houston Astros in 1998. Anybody who watched
Pedro Martinez whiff 17 batters at Yankee Stadium in 1999 will distinctly remember how close he came to throwing a no-hitter --
Chili Davis, at the end of his career, whacked a changeup for a home run, at a time when he probably couldn't have hit Martinez's fastball, and this was New York's only hit. The
Dwight Gooden of 1984-86, with that vicious high-riding fastball and the curveball that seemed to do U-turns, will always own a special corner in the imagination of anyone who saw him throw in those years.
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Buster Olney
