MAKING A PITCH : Split-Finger Fastball Is Changing the Game

On a pleasant evening in Richmond, Va., four seasons ago, Donnie Moore became a believer.

It didn’t take much. After all, he was back in the minor leagues, which is nice if you like Springfield, Wichita, Midland and such. Moore had seen them all and then some. Now he was in Richmond, home of the Atlanta Braves’ Triple-A team--and he was struggling.

Moore needed an off-speed pitch. Had to have it. Otherwise, he was like every other guy in the minors attempting to get by with a slider and a fastball.

First, he tried a change-up. “I tried about every way you could throw one,” he said.

That might have worked had umpires not called a ball about every time Moore heaved the half-hearted pitch. It was considered a moral victory when the change-up reached the plate, never mind how high or low it was.

This wasn’t working, at all. Something new was needed.

Hey, what about the split-finger fastball?

Moore had learned the pitch--it was called a forkball in simpler times--while in the Chicago Cubs’ organization. The late Fred Martin, an instructor with the Cubs and the guy who taught Bruce Sutter the pitch, suggested that Moore try the split-finger. Moore, no dummy, couldn’t find a ball fast enough.

“I saw the success that Sutter was having in the minor leagues,” Moore said. “He’d come in with the bases loaded and strike out the side on nine pitches. It was awesome.”

So Moore experimented with the pitch, which entails nothing more than gripping the ball along the seams, spreading the index and middle fingers to the desired width, and throwing. The key, Moore says, is making sure the delivery resembles that of someone waving hello in a wristy, vertical motion.

The batter thinks he’s getting a true fastball. Why not? Same motion, same arm speed.

But if all goes well, the pitch tumbles downward, as if it were losing its breath. It also travels slower than a true fastball, which tends to make for a lot of early swings. Hitters don’t like it, this pitch that looks like a fastball, but isn’t; that sinks, but shouldn’t.

“It was the difference between a minor league pitcher and a major league pitcher,” Moore said. “That one little move. I always had it, but I didn’t use it.”

Not until that night in Richmond, when Brave pitching coach Johnny Sain convinced him to try the split-finger fastball in a game, did Moore understand the pitch’s full potential.

“(Sain) asked me if I used that pitch in a game situation,” Moore said. “I said no. I said I didn’t have that much confidence in it. He said I should use it. He thought it was a hell of a pitch.

“He said, ‘That’s why you’re in Richmond, in Triple-A. You should work on it, throw it, work on it.’ I did that, and it was the difference in me. That’s what got me back in the big leagues.”

By 1984, Moore began to master the pitch. He led Atlanta in saves with 16 and had a 2.94 earned-run average. Then the Angels selected Moore in the 1985 compensation pool. He recorded 31 saves, finished with a 1.92 ERA and was rewarded with a 3-year, $3-million contract. He can’t thank the split-finger fastball enough.

Moore also might want to send a thank-you note to Roger Craig, who manages the San Francisco Giants. It was Craig who popularized the pitch and serves as its spokesman. Not a day goes by that Craig doesn’t receive three or four phone calls and several letters from coaches or players who want to know how to throw it. Craig sends them typewritten instructions--free of charge.

At spring games, Craig finds himself dispensing advice on the split-finger to friend and foe alike. During a recent pregame warmup, Angel pitcher Ken Forsch consulted Craig about a flaw in his split-finger delivery. Later, Forsch went to the bullpen to work on the pitch.

Last season, Houston pitcher Mike Scott asked Craig to teach him the split-finger. “Worked with him in the wintertime for about six days,” Craig said.

Scott finished last season with an 18-7 record. His record before learning the split-finger was 29-44.

Craig, then the pitching coach with the Detroit Tigers, taught Jack Morris the split-finger. No pitcher has won more games, 102, in this decade than Morris.

By the time Craig left the coaching staff after the 1984 season, the year Detroit defeated San Diego in the World Series, the Tigers had the lowest team ERA in the American League, and every Detroit pitcher threw the split-finger.

“I’m not saying that’s what made us win the World Series, but it sure as hell helped,” Craig said.

Suddenly, the major leagues are filled with guys who throw fake fastballs. Randy O’Neal banged around the minor leagues for several seasons before Craig took him aside and taught him the split-finger. “He’s got a great one now, almost as good as the one Morris has,” Craig said. “It’s made (O’Neal) a major league pitcher.”

Doug Corbett, an Angel pitcher, learned the split-finger grip from Moore last year.

“I picked it up throwing in the outfield one afternoon and I used it in the game that night,” he said. “I probably threw it about 15 times, I guess, and the majority of them were for strikes. I gave up one hit to Willie Wilson on it.”

Said Marcel Lachemann, the Angel pitching coach: “It’s an easy pitch to throw that anybody would be crazy not to try.”

Craig taught himself the pitch six years ago, when he was 50. He was operating a baseball school in San Diego, and his pupils weren’t major leaguers, but 15- and 16-year-old players.

“I was trying to find an off-speed pitch, something that would be easy to throw,” he said.

Craig talked to Sutter about the split-finger. “But the way he told me, I couldn’t do it,” Craig said.

So he improvised, telling pitchers to gradually increase the width of the two fingers on the ball as it became more comfortable. “It’s amazing how easy it was to pitch,” he said.

Better yet, the pitch doesn’t strain the arm or shoulder. Also, pitchers were told to think split-finger fastball , not split-finger change-up. It became a state of mind. This wasn’t a trick pitch, but something that retained its machismo.

But this fastball can do one of three things. It can break like a spitter, flutter like a knuckleball or tumble down without warning.

Craig brought 25 pitchers to spring camp. Twenty-one of them now throw the split-finger in one form or another. Just the other day, Craig asked Giant pitcher Mike Krukow, who led the team’s starters in complete games, strikeouts and ERA, to quit throwing a change-up and try the split-finger.

The Giants finished 62-100 last season. Only two other teams, the Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh Pirates, lost more games in 1985. So Craig doesn’t get many arguments when he suggests a pitching change. “Not now,” he said. “They know I’ve had a lot of success with (the split-finger).”

Said Giant veteran reliever Greg Minton: “We’ve got one guy, Mark Grant, our young phenom, and he was coming up and he was struggling in the minors with a fastball and curve, fastball and curve. Now he’s throwing this thing. When he throws it right, you just see the hitters one-arming it. They’re way out in front. All of the sudden, he can throw any pitch he wants now.”

But isn’t it a tiny bit unfair that another pitch has come along to confound hitters?

“I think you ought to legalize the spitball,” Minton says. “Don Sutton can cut it with the best of them, why can’t we throw forkballs?

“Heck no. Somebody invent about three more of these things real quick and we’ll be real happy. Make the mound another 19 inches higher and no problem. They’ve got corks in their bats.”

Already, the split-finger has been described as, the pitch of the ‘80s.

“I think it will change things in the ‘80s, but I think too many people are jumping on the bandwagon,” Minton said. “I don’t think that many guys will be able to throw it that well. It will be outstanding for the guys who do master it.”

Not so, said Moore of the Angels.

“I think it is the pitch of the future,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a pitch like the slider was. Now almost everybody throws a little slider. I think in years to come, it’s going to be the pitch.”