In baseball, a pitcher has an assortment of pitches to choose from when deciding how he is going to throw the ball to the batter. One of his options is a fastball.
A fastball is one of the first “specialty” pitches that can be taught to younger players. There are two basic types of fastballs, a four seamer, where the fingers lay across four seams and two seamers, where the fingers lay on top of or near two seams.
A fastball can have vertical action. A four seamer is generally will rise through the strike zone while two seamers will normally sink.
Fastballs can also move horizontally. They can either be boring, where they move hard towards the batter, tailing, where the ball moves slightly towards the batter and they can be cutting, where they move away from the batter.
Both the vertical and horizontal movement in the fastball are called movement.
To throw a four seamer fastball, the baseball is held with the index and middle finger across the horseshoe seams of the baseball. The end joints of the fingers should be over the seam to ensure a good grip.
The two-seam fastball can be gripped in two ways. The fingers can go either with the seams or across the seams. When the fingers go across the seams, the pitcher can hook the end joints of the index and middle finger on a seam and get a good feel for the pitch, but some pitchers prefer to lay their entire fingers lengthwise on a seam instead.
With either pitch the thumb should be on the bottom of the ball on an imaginary line between the two fingers on the top. The ball should be held loosely in the hand. There should be at least a finger-width space between the ball and the palm of the hand.
To deliver a fastball, throw with a normal overhand pitch. The ball should roll off the fingertips with some backward spin.
Now that you have learned a little about the fastball, you can get out there and play ball!