AP In yesterday’s Nationals-Braves game Adam LaRoche came to the plate against his longtime friend and former teammate Tim Hudson and jokingly signaled for a knuckleball.
Hudson figured why not and tossed a 47-mph pitch to the plate for a ball. “I didn’t think he would do it,” LaRoche told Bill Ladson of MLB.com afterward. “I should have known better.”
And then LaRoche lined a sharp single to right field on a fastball later in the at-bat.
Here’s the MLB.com video:
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- professormaddog31 - Mar 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM
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I love when good friends face each other like that; the goofiest stuff happens and it’s always freaking hilarious.
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- El Bravo - Mar 22, 2013 at 12:02 PM
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OH, OPENING DAY! WHY DOST THOU TAKE SO LONG TO ARRIVE?
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- dlf9 - Mar 22, 2013 at 12:05 PM
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I’m sorry but this is blog-fail. How can you reference a 47 m.p.h. pitch to Adam LaRoche, son of Dave LaRoche, and not reference dad’s LaLob?
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- dlf9 - Mar 22, 2013 at 12:07 PM
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I don’t know how to enbed this, but LaRoche striking out Gorman Thomas in Yankee stadium on a pitch that couldn’t have broken the speed limit in a school zone.
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- sabatimus - Mar 22, 2013 at 12:43 PM
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Now THIS is an eephus pitch. Hudson’s really wasn’t close to an eephus pitch, though it should have been called a strike.
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- beefytrout - Mar 22, 2013 at 2:29 PM
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sabatimus is correct on both counts. The ball has to at least go higher than the batter’s head to even earn eephus consideration.
And Hudson’s pitch looked like a strike too.
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- sophiethegreatdane - Mar 22, 2013 at 3:08 PM
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I’m glad sabatimus chimed in above. That was not an eephus pitch.
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- thegreatstoneface - Mar 22, 2013 at 3:56 PM
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needs a lot more rainbow to it, to be an eephus…
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- sanzarq - Mar 22, 2013 at 6:58 PM
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Thanks for posting the La La Lob. Hilarious!
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- westcoastredbird - Mar 22, 2013 at 7:12 PM
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Rip Sewell made a living off of the eephus ball. In fact he may have invented it. I was hoping that Aroldis Chapman would add it to his repitoire. Go Redbirds!
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- sabatimus - Mar 22, 2013 at 9:30 PM
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If I remember correctly, Ted Williams saw an eephus pitch once and swung and missed. He saw it a second time and crushed it into the bleachers.
