Mark says: Thank you so much for taking the time to research my baseball journey! FYI I broke a window the other day with a baseball and my Popeye impersonation is better than ever! Lol
As a a kid growing up in the Santa Cruz mountains, Mark would come home during winters and give us kids lessons. I'll never forget how nice and humble he was to us 7 year old little leaguers.
He is currently the pitching coach at Aptos High school in Santa Cruz county I grew up in Santa Cruz as well and I’ve pitched with Side Arm delivery since I was like 11 cos of guys like Mark Eichorn and Kent Tekuvle
Nice! Watsonville native here and I grew up going to Eichorns camp too. My cousin is actually his niece and my sister used to baby sit his kid. Always was a cool dude and super nice to us kids.
I knew it was Mark Eichhorn before the spoiler. I remember watching him and remember it stunning the hitters and even the announcers. Lifelong Blue Jay fan and Mark was absolutely a mystery to me when I was a kid...NO ONE did that. I think it shows just how special he was.
he was good enough to break the meta, albeit whatever that was at that time but there was def still a norm set. Dude took that flipped it. And then putting in someone after him actually throwing 90+ would throw off other teams very bad. Thats a method im suprised isnt used or explored more to this day. Dudes are all about throwing extremely fast, getting injurys, when its been proven a dude throwing 70 was just as effective, and then that makes the closer even more lethal to deal with for the other team. I dont get why nobody really tried this again
I remember Eichhorn. Someone said "Eichhorn comes up and spends a couple innings throwing 72-mph Frisbees up to the plate, then when Henke comes in it looks like he's throwing 120 miles an hour."
It is a great story, especially with having to reinvent his delivery, work himself back up, from Triple A, and then ending up pitching in the World Series, on a team with the guy he setup so many times as a rookie. Truth is better than fiction. He makes the Wild Thing story, in Major League, seem like an SNL skit.
@@jamesdep8128he probably did. He coached little league in Aptos California. He took a all-star team to the little league world series and was a staple in the community while his kids grew up playing in the area.
I had a chance to play catch with a genuine major leaguer in winter of 1983...I was a senior in high school and Mark had just made his debut with the Jays. Our families were friends from many years previously and we went to visit the Eichhorns. We were in awe of Mark, of course, so you can imagine how we felt when he said, "Wanna play catch?" Problem was he was resting his throwing arm and could only throw lefty. And much to my embarrassment, I couldn't catch his left-handed curve ball! Come to think of it, it was kinda like catching a frisbee so maybe I deserve credit for putting an idea in his head, lol!!!
I grew up a Jays’ fan and remember how great Eichhorn was. His 86 season was unbelievable. Years later, his sister was in my RCIA group in Los Altos, Calif.
I still don’t know why this guy isn’t more famous and why more pitchers aren’t trying to imitate him like they would imitate other star pitchers. Great video
because he played on "that team from Canada", same reason Steib doesn't get the credit he deserves in baseball history. (like fact Jack Morris is in the Hall and Dave isn't is a disgrace. They were the same damn pitcher and Steib was probably even slightly better than Morris in terms of WAR)
Did you see his overall record? He fulfilled his niche in 1986 wonderfully, but after that it appears they caught up to him, still providing that niche, but was no Henke.
The thing is that any major league hitter can LEARN to hit against him . . . and they did, which is why he didn't stay on top for long. But as something you haven't learned how to hit, he's impossible.
@@ajm5007 , These Pro baseball players are used to the "heat" and not so much with the finesse and control. Greg Maddux threw faster than Eichorn, and was able to maintain the superior finesse and control for many years. I realize that Maddux wasn't a relief pitcher so that changes things.
Another interesting tidbit about Mark is that he coached his son Kevin’s team to a Little League World Series appearance. Kevin later pitched in the minor leagues and was once traded for Armando Galarraga, who famously came one out shy of throwing a perfect game if not for an absurd blown call by ump Jim Joyce.
Joyce was a good ump, who blew the call that umps blow the most. But it was a great moment the next day when the crowd gave him a standing ovation after he had apologized the night before on tv. The old man in blue broke down in tears.....the Galarraga was a true gentleman about the whole thing. Great sportsmanship.
@@joemarshall4226 I remember watching that game.. Considering the rarity of the situation and how hard it is to achieve, I would not have been as forgiving as Armando was. I would've called for his job.
As a lowly tigers fan I'll never forget that random weekday. Armando was so good that game u could tell after the 3rd something special was happening. Then Jackson makes the unbelievable catch in the 9th, then the call. Still don't know how in that moment Joyce went with the runner in that bang bang play. It's a perfecto u gotta give it to the pitcher if u think it was that close. Come to find out he was out by a full step. Still makes me sick to my stomach whenever I see it. So rare, n to lose it that way, disgusting
This video is an example of what makes RUclips (and it's content creators) such a great part of the internet. It manages to give everyone their 15 minutes of fame and allows niche specifics, become an entire video, with a lot of stats. Perfect for us Stat geeks, that can look at the back of one baseball card, for 10 to 15 minutes. Just looking at stats and info. Every card is a story to be discovered!! If you ever do a Baseball card video, LMK. I'd love to help, no charge! Just for the love of the hobby :)
I played in a league Mark played in. I was not aware of who he was the first time we played. He was tall and threw side arm. An occasional 90mph over the top. No one could really hit anything. Lots of strike outs, foul tips. There was league buzz about him pitching for his Santa Cruz Blue Jays team. I got 2 dead bird hits and a swinging bunt to 3rd on one day. He made it a point to approach me during the game. He said “Hey, those count. They are good hits”. After the game, his wife and kids said good job-Mark likes seeing players still playing. What a great day and just a really great example of human kindness from him and his family. Thank you Mark and Eichhorn Family.
I saw Eichhorn in Toronto, & what was particularly striking was how the manager would leave him in until hitters got used to him, then bring in Henke who would blow fastballs right by them. It was incredibly effective.
I got a hit off of Eichhorn in an adult league game played at Aptos high school back in 2006… then struck me out in 4 pitches the next AB… I think he ended the game with 15 K’s in 7 innings. Oh, and he hit a home run. He was almost unhittable when he wanted to be. I should also mention that he was a really good guy, even though he was on an entirely other level compared to everyone else on the field.
It's a shame he didn't get enough innings to win the ERA crown. I watched it all year, hoping he would have.....he would have destroyed the previous record, and his name would have gone down in history....
More important than getting an ERA crown, he lasted enough years in the major league to earn a full pension. An unbelievable feat with the ability he had. Living the good life.
@@joemarshall4226 Doesn't matter really. If a player can leave some kind of a good mark on baseball? Then he's already won. This is especially true with such a middle man. This position doesn't get much glory to begin with.
@@hughdismuke4703 Agreed. I'd still love to see his name in the record books. Middle men are more important than closers IMHO. I think it's ridiculous that so many closers are in the Hall of Fame, when they only pitch around a thousand innings in their entire careers. Yet some really excellent starters with three or four times as many innings are left out.
I remember Mark fondly. As a jays fan,my 15yr old self was truly excited every time I saw him on the mound. Whatever that hop off the mound was!?!…..it worked for the guy!
It was where he landed from the sidearm pitch. It put him in the perfect position for a line drive back at the mound. I was a pitcher and exactly like him. I didnt know it until 2003 when I seen his replays. I was in the same position he stood after his pitch.
Baseball is so weirdly entertaining in surprising ways. As batters got used to Eichhorn (admittedly making batters better), Eichhorn got better at tricking up batters. This elevating the game is rare and always inspiring.
When I was in high school around ‘90 I got paired up with Eichorn and another player I didn’t know at Dunedin Country Club when he was down for spring training with the Jays. Nice guy.
Give this guy some time , hopefully he gets a little more into some enticing edits and music. Not every sports channel needs to be secret base. I agree though, jon bois sets a high bar.
You had me in tears! How is it we never knew how effective Mark Eichhorn was - these many years into the Sabermetrics Era? I guess somebody knew - but I didn't. Thank you for this revelation! Decades ago, Bill James speculated on why few modern pitchers adopted the sidearm or submarine delivery. Since then, I learned that Walter Johnson was a sidearm hurler: we're blessed to have footage of his deceptive, seemingly effortless de livery. One thing we didn't count on was the low velocity. It's a good story that the league finally adjusted to the unhittable Eichhorn - only to have him descend to the Minors again and return to the Majors having made his adjustments. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this gem of a video!
As a long-time Jays fan, I vaguely remember Eichhorn. I was a kid at the time he played for them and I did not go too deep into the stats back then. Nice to review those memorable few years.
Well presented and intriguing story. Props to Mark Eichorn from this Orioles fan. About the same time that Mark was having his remarkable '86 season I was washing out of high school baseball. I wish I could have made adjustments like he did.
One of the nicest guys of all time to ever play for The Jays. He used to come in to a restaurant I worked at near Skydome back in the day. What an awesome dude.
The Blue Jays' 1987 season ended with a 1-0 loss to Frank Tanana the next day; if they'd won, the team would have finished the season in a tie, and a playoff would have been necessary. By the way, that game-ending grounder through the legs of Manny Lee in game 161 was actually ruled a hit by the hometown scorer; I was stunned to find that out when I looked up the Retrosheet play-by-play a few years ago.
That is astonishing and even as a lifelong Blue Jays fan I had no idea. In fairness I was in Grade 1 in his rookie season so I only really know him from the 2nd time around when he was with the WS winning teams but that is some mind blowing stuff. Nice shout out to Secret Base too, ha! I think they would dig what you're doing. Great video
Did you know that Alfredo Griffin and Dave Stewart are the only two men to have witnessed Kirk Gibson's home run in 1988 and Joe Carter's walk off in 1993.
Did I shout out Secret Base? I deleted my script for this video a couple months ago when it had 200 views. SB are legends though, i might quote them without realizing :)
@@lookitsbaseball8822 Yeah I think there was a little shout out to the Stieb documentary at one point very quickly. I watched it all the way through twice the first week it was out, it is magical.
Those Jay's teams in the first half of the '80s had a crazy eclectic mix of pitchers. Eichhorn, Henke, Stieb, etc. And for a couple years they were even managed by the legend Bobby Cox
I met Mark in 1987 at the Dixie mall. My father was a radio dj and they were broadcasting a show from the mall, they had Eichhorn, Henke, Wells, Mulliniks and Whitt on the show. I still have the autographed hat I got that day.
honestly had not heard his name in 30 years, his story is an inspiration for every player to never give up. he had a strong impact on the game and changed hitting for years to come.
I have a idea for a quirky connection to two of the the most famous World Series home runs. Alfredo Griffin was pinch hit for by Mike Davis before Kirk Gibson's walk off home run in 1988. Five years later, the same Griffin was the on deck hitter when Carter's home run walked off the Philadelphia Phillies in 1993. Griffin retired from baseball after Carter's walk off in 1993. Dave Stewart was in the Oakland Athletics dugout in 1988 and in the Blue Jays dugout in 1993. Dave Stewart and Alfredo Griffin are the only two players to witness Gibson's and Carter's walk off World Series home runs.
I can connect the 1919 Black Sox Scandal to the Griffeys. How? Dickie Kerr was the most honest of the 1919 White Sox. He won two of the three Chicago White Sox wins against Cincinnati in the 1919 World Series. After retiring, Kerr was Stan Musial's very first manager for the Daytona Beach Islanders in Class D ball. Stan Musial and the Griffeys were born in Donora, Pennsylvania.
This guy isn't famous because that wasn't the point he was trying to make. He didn't want to be the best at anything. He wanted to be adequate enough to earn his keep. He didn't go for flashy and impressive heaters. Didn't go for crazy breaks. He went for doing exactly enough to not get hit, and not an ounce more. He got as close to the exact 100% of the quota, even if he had another 40% in him on top. Because guess what, in time, the quota was raised as they started to figure him out. So he went back to the drawing board, and matched it again. He did what he needed to. He squeezed the absolute maximum out of his own body, his career and I believe his self satisfaction. The definition of running a marathon. Perfectly paced application of skill. What a guy.
Excellent video. I’ve always been fascinated by unique players in MLB. Back in the late 60’s the St.Louis Cardinals had a side arm pitcher named Don Dennis. He was a true side arm and performed pretty well.
My oldest son grew late. Very good athlete. I just played with him throwing knuckleballs in the yard. Hee was 5 foot 1 as a freshman and was just unhittable:) Fighter pilot now.
there's beauty in the low quality edits and just through narration alone... I don't even know how this video got onto my recommendation but this was one nice narration voice.
That was interesting. While everyone loves flamethrowers, one thing that is often overlooked is movement. I'm sure his unusual throwing motion did have an effect on batters, but one thing you hinted at is how much the ball moved (the catcher had problems catching it). In that way, his pitches resemble a knuckleball. However, I think when you combine that with the underarm motion, it makes it especially wicked. I think that movement of pitches is far underappreciated. You hear people attributing Maddux's success to how smart he pitched, and while yeah, that might have something to do with it, I think a lot more of it had to do with movement. Watch his pitches, they dance everywhere. Moreover, movement, or better, loss of movement, is a better explanation for his decline. It's not like he got any dumber in his pitching. What more likely happened is that his pitches just straightened out. Oh by the way, if no one has mentioned it, Jenny Finch's 68 mph pitch on the softball diamond is nothing like a 70 mph baseball pitch. Given the mound is that much closer, it is more like the 90 mph fastball.
back in the days everyone said that david wells had a great curve ball but that he throwed it too much, not enough mixing with fast ball and change up... well he ended with an awsome career throwing his crazy sidearm curvies, sometimes 3-4 times in a row
I remember a book "Baseball-istics" teaching the physics of baseball and one pitcher was a slow, junkball pitcher and the other was a fireballer. Mid-game the starters get relived, and the fireballer was replaced by a similar but slower pitcher and gets rocked. The junkballer gets replaced by a regular pitcher and he shuts down the other side, used to the junkball the new guy looks fantastic.
I saw him pitch with the Orioles. Definitely one of the more unorthodox styles I've ever seen. The way he jumped off the mound had to throw off the batter's interpretation of what was coming at them at those speeds.
It would be nice to see a piece on Mike Flanagan. He was a lefty pitcher who played mostly for the Orioles in the late 70's and early 80s. He was awarded the Cy Young award and he was a slow pitcher but very effective. He passed away by suicide in his home. That was in 2011. Thanks
My son and I recently got into pitching because of our interest in physics. We're also fans of comedy. This channel has been instrumental in teaching us the basics, and what the best are able to do with a perfect amount of funny. Combined with understanding strategy more now were gonna be better spots fans. My son made a point both correct and insightful as we both learned together about what these pitchers do. It's the fact that we can do things like this that we dominate the planet. Humans can throw and sweat enough to enable long hunts over herbivores. These guys are among the planets best examples of people who have honed these skills to the point of near superhuman ability. We also appreciate the facts about "understandings" and do's and don't because we're only just getting started. Thanks for the helpful visualizations too. We didn't know what to look for. Keep it up!
Dangit. I knew hitter metrics of all time were gonna come up, and i knew my 2 Orioles were gonna be on there. Dang it, it's hard to have been an O's fan since the early 90s.
I was a big fan of Mark Eichhorn. I was lousy at darts, but Inspired by Mark Eichhorn I taught my self to throw side arm. Then after someone beat me at darts, I would play them but we both had to throw sidearm. I never lost those games. Mark, thanks for all those free beers .
I am sitting here in the Italian. Tomato coffeeshop in Fujimino City, trying to gems brain rehabbed enough to continue studying the kanji. So I stop and plug into RUclips and here you are. With the story of Eich and the Jays…this is the most impressive article I have read in 2023. thanks . BTW what is Eichhorn doing now? Where is he?
@ Laurie Harper: I just wonder how a spin bowler in cricket would go, bowling say leg spin, full tosses as per normal cricket overarm action. Considering Shane Warne used to get over 2 foot of drift in the air from right to left facing the batter... wonder how difficult that would be to hit? Add to the fact his other variations, suspect a 50 m.p.h. bowler would be a nightmare in baseball.
@@111jacare I think you'd get a this is unhittable reaction for a few pitches followed by a this is easy reaction some time later. I don't think the variations a spin bowler has would help as much as you think if all they're bowling is full tosses. I'm a spin bowler and there's no way I'm teaching myself to bowl full tosses. I would be interested in how a baseball seam behaves differently because I have no doubt it's very different.
Blue Jays had so many "secrets" back in the 80s. "that team from Canada" never really got the respect it deserved, even through the back 2 back WS wins. Wasn't really until Rogers/Sportsnet began really pushing the team as a bonafide MLB Market. But I digress. I remember growing up watching this guy and along with Steib were my two favorite players on the Jays. Steib > Eichhorn > Henke > Ball Game, it was almost a lock every time. When he was initially moved off the team it was such a gut punch to young me...why would they get rid of him, he is a lock!. But then he came back and helped win championships...and life was good and made sense again. Great video, its kind of sad players on the Jays never had the exposure they deserved back in the day....but now 30 someodd years later revisiting their stories with my much improved knowledge of the game really drives home just how special they were and how spoiled we were as fans to have such a stable of unique talents like Mark.
I always loved watching Jamie Moyer pitch, someone with similar style and velocity to Eichhorn. Major League hitters just struggle so much against this "slow, slower and slowest" strategy.
FYI: A 70 MPH softball is the equivalent of a 101.2 MPH baseball. The softball mound is about 45 feet from the batter's box. The baseball mound is 60.6 feet from the batter's box. Jennie Finch was 6 foot 1 inch in height. With her long stride she's almost at 38 feet from the batter's box plus a couple for arm length from which the ball actually releases. Very tough to hit for someone conditioned to see the ball from an underhand angle much harder for someone who doesnt hit underhand pitching. I dont know why Finch is always mentioned in these comparisons. There are men's fast pitch softball leagues where a softball pitch has been clocked at 100MPH. Get a 6 foot 5 inch male pitcher on a softball mound throwing 100 MPH. Who is going to hit that? Now if a softball pitcher can throw underhand from the pitching mound distance 100 MPH - then I'm impressed.
What a treat to run across this video. My chums and I, llke most Torontonians, were Jays-obsessed at this time as the team were in the genesis of becoming what they would eventually be.....a powerhouse. Eichorn and the Terminator were by far our favourites on a team that had plenty of players to admire.
he has a cool story. they should make a movie of him because i know they would make some funny jokes about the speed of his pitch. And seeing his comeback would be cool. the dips and rises of his career would be cool to see. May need to have a show or be a film with multiple sections for all the aspects of his life.
I'm British,have no knowledge about baseball,not even that interested in it , but I liked this video a lot because it was inspiring and quite funny. He seems an awesome bloke too
Not sure why the algorithm picked up this vid and started showing this to me and apparently everyone else, but I'm glad it did. 80s and early 90s baseball was magic.
I used to pitch Fastpitch softball, and I was enamored of those two, Kent Tekulve and the Mets' Terry Leach....Terry was made a starter one year, and he went 11-1! I think it was '87. I wanted to do a sports video of them pitching, with the hit song of the time "I Come from the Land Down Under" playing in the background. We don't see submariners any more. But Walter Johnson was one,a nd he is often touted to be the best pitcher ever......
@@joemarshall4226 i remember leach being the best of everyone not named Gooden. That was the year after they won the WS. Non baseball people dont realize how disruptive it is to have a strange delivery. Valenzuela in 80-81 with his "look to the sky" delivery and Nomo in 95 with his 180 rotation, back to the batter with a long pause delivery both operate on the same principle. Disguising the angle of delivery really plays with batters heads and shortens the time available to recognize and react to the pitch.
@@jasonmgomez Bill James said that he thought one of the reasons for the offensive explosion of the mid to late 90s was "cookie cutter deliveries"....all the pitchers went ot camps to learn how to throw. Meanwhile, Pedro was mowing them down throwing from three different arm angles, and five different pitches from each one!
Never thought I'd watch a 16+ minute video about baseball, but here I am 🙃 awesome stuff, this is the method I used to pitch, but I was also 11 and couldn't throw faster 😂
Thanks for the video. I remember this year, and Eichhorn. He was insane. But, I never saw him pitch, as it was before the internet, and I only could watch the Cubs and Braves. So; i did not know he was a side arm frisbee thrower =)
Aptos, CA and our semi-pro team met up with his semi-pro team in the championship game. Forget about his velocity, or lack there of, the guy was a helluva competitor. Very fierce competitor out on that mound. Little known fact: he started out as a shortstop at, I think, DeAnza College. He was a baseball player, not just a pitcher. Pretty good hitter, too.
To be fair, Dave Winfield threw his bat all the time. I loved Mark. I threw sidearm in high school and college. My heroes were Mark, Kent Tekulve and Quiz. In fantasy baseball we called Mark "the Ricky Henderson of pitchers" because he could do it all.
I was stuck home watching three little kids most nights during those years. I lived near NYC and watched the Mets and Yankees games. There was one stretch where Dave threw his bat at the ball five times over a few weeks...but here's the thing. He HIT the ball every time (what are the odds against that?) He hit it FAIR every time. (What are the odds against that?) He got a base hit on it each time! (That's impossible! Mostly infield singles in the hole between short and third) One of the hits was a DOUBLE! (a bloop single that he hustled into a double). The amazing thing was the commentators didn't make a big deal about it! They didn't realize how many times it had happened, or they didn't realize how rare it was or I don't know what, but I was standing, yelling at my black and whit tv! "I can't believe it!" Maybe it was only four times...but it wasn't three, and he definitely hit a double. It might have been the year he lost the batting crown to Mattingly on the last day fo the season....hit .340 or thereabouts. I think Donnie Baseball went 4 for 5 on the final day....the one year Wade Boggs didn't win it.
@@joemarshall4226 He really did throw the bat all the time. You also reminded me of the time Boggs sat out the last 4 games to win the batting title and how Mattingly fell just short.
I follow little baseball. Your depth and explanation of Eichhorn's prowess and the mark he made in baseball is exceptional. Like I said, I don't watch much baseball and pretty much no very little stats. Your video held my attention for the full 16:45! That alone, should say something.
This guy was my pitching coach growing up. We’d drive to his house during the off season and got sick lessons. His kid was a stud as well. Good dude who loves Jesus.
I especially like how he follows through on delivery into a "ready" stance, where he's better prepared for the ball than other pitchers thanks to the extra time the ball takes to get there. Plus the "he doesn't get tired" aspect of this would allow clubs to spend less money on pitchers in general. How did the side-arm pitch not freaking explode after this? It's like Moneyball for pitchers (and I think a submarine pitcher was featured in that book/movie).
Since WAR is a cumulative stat, Eichhorn's 1986 season is aided by the fact that it's eighth all time for innings pitched by a reliever, and no one since then has come near that total -- with the next closest being Eichhorn himself the very next year (tied with 1990 Duane Ward). In fact there have only been seven relievers with as many as 120 IP in a season since 1986, and none since 1990. Only six relievers have reached 100 IP in the 21st century.
Funny enough this happened in WW2 with air defence. Often the Royal Navy's Fairey Swordfish biplane aircraft sunk tons of axis shipping while rarely being shot down because air defence gunners were used to targeting far more modern, faster aircraft.
This reminds me of a kid that I played baseball with in high school. He had this crazy knuckle-ball that nobody could hit, it was so weird coming at you. The best I ever did against his knuckler was to get a foul-tip.
Great video, knew who this was before even starting the video....hey thats Mark! Went to high school with him , remember him as a nice guy a great athletic. Shout out Watsonville, the Wildcats and to Eichhorn... Great times the 70s.
I remember watching him play for the AAA Syracuse Chiefs (farm team for Toronto back then) back in the 80s when I was a kid. I grew up a Toronto Blue Jay fan watching stars like Eichhorn, Tom Henke, Tony Fernandez, George Bell, and Fred McGriff there before they made it to the big leagues.
Most people can't hit any speed over 60mph, so Mark was ALWAYS considered a FANTASTIC pitcher, who earned his spot TWICE, on Toronto's CHAMPIONSHIP teams & he played BIG roles on both of them #salute
That description of the pitch being so slow that you had time to analyze your whole life as the ball came towards you was HILARIOUS. Between that and the dude’s mustache and chubby face looking just like Jack Black in Nacho Libre, I just about lost it.
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
Mark says: Thank you so much for taking the time to research my baseball journey! FYI I broke a window the other day with a baseball and my Popeye impersonation is better than ever! Lol
Thank you Mariann for sharing my silly little video with the man himself :)
A man’s man and a hero in anyone’s book. Mark knows how to break down a hitter like no one else.
A wonderful journey and he set the bar high! Bravo!!
Give Mark our best and we hope he is doing well.
🥰
We sure loved Eich up here. Thanks Marc, for helping the Jays win two World Series in 92 and 93. An all-time great setup guy.
Those teams were soooooooooo STACKED.
Heck, I'm not even a big baseball fan but I remember both those championships. Those were some damn good games.
never an all star. most underrated arm in baseball history (Quisenberry deserves a mention too).
Thank you Mark!!!!!!! eh!
is it legal to pitch like this in 2023?
As a a kid growing up in the Santa Cruz mountains, Mark would come home during winters and give us kids lessons. I'll never forget how nice and humble he was to us 7 year old little leaguers.
That's such a bonus. It's a shame when players like Bonds hate everyone, including fans.
He is currently the pitching coach at Aptos High school in Santa Cruz county I grew up in Santa Cruz as well and I’ve pitched with Side Arm delivery since I was like 11 cos of guys like Mark Eichorn and Kent Tekuvle
@@jordanpatience9249 nice! Harvey West 🌞 Summer Ball!
Nice! Watsonville native here and I grew up going to Eichorns camp too. My cousin is actually his niece and my sister used to baby sit his kid. Always was a cool dude and super nice to us kids.
Can you share what he taught you?
I knew it was Mark Eichhorn before the spoiler. I remember watching him and remember it stunning the hitters and even the announcers. Lifelong Blue Jay fan and Mark was absolutely a mystery to me when I was a kid...NO ONE did that. I think it shows just how special he was.
Eichorn was less (I think) 11 outs away from qualifying for the ERA title in ‘86, which he would have won by a landslide.
What are you talking about. His face is in the thumbnail. Of course its about him
Did the title and description give it away 😆
I did too and no I didn't see his name listed
he was good enough to break the meta, albeit whatever that was at that time but there was def still a norm set. Dude took that flipped it. And then putting in someone after him actually throwing 90+ would throw off other teams very bad. Thats a method im suprised isnt used or explored more to this day. Dudes are all about throwing extremely fast, getting injurys, when its been proven a dude throwing 70 was just as effective, and then that makes the closer even more lethal to deal with for the other team. I dont get why nobody really tried this again
I remember Eichhorn. Someone said "Eichhorn comes up and spends a couple innings throwing 72-mph Frisbees up to the plate, then when Henke comes in it looks like he's throwing 120 miles an hour."
5:00
Its a actually a great 1-2 punch. Hitters get used to really slow pitching then Henke comes 8n and blasts guys. Total mind fcuk!
The perfect setup lol
Yeah it was the guy whos video you literally just watched. I cant wait for the youtube feature of auto-deleting the "i am 5 and vewy smawt" comments.
@@variouselite Maybe try not being so miserable
This should be made into a movie. It’s the classic underdog story.
he even looks like brad pitt in money ball
@@Brainjoy01 probably need someone a bit younger unless they increase the CGI budget.
It is a great story, especially with having to reinvent his delivery, work himself back up, from Triple A, and then ending up pitching in the World Series, on a team with the guy he setup so many times as a rookie.
Truth is better than fiction. He makes the Wild Thing story, in Major League, seem like an SNL skit.
True, but nowadays they would change him into a black trans in a wheelchair.
Seriously, this is a better story than Moneyball without any embellishments
He taught me and my brother in Little League. Such a nice guy, an old family friend!
Sure guy trying to hang on
@@jamesdep8128he probably did. He coached little league in Aptos California. He took a all-star team to the little league world series and was a staple in the community while his kids grew up playing in the area.
I had a chance to play catch with a genuine major leaguer in winter of 1983...I was a senior in high school and Mark had just made his debut with the Jays. Our families were friends from many years previously and we went to visit the Eichhorns. We were in awe of Mark, of course, so you can imagine how we felt when he said, "Wanna play catch?" Problem was he was resting his throwing arm and could only throw lefty. And much to my embarrassment, I couldn't catch his left-handed curve ball! Come to think of it, it was kinda like catching a frisbee so maybe I deserve credit for putting an idea in his head, lol!!!
Yea well let’s find out….. his wife also commented on this post
This was an awesome topic. Glad the man himself saw it.
It's so rad.
Bailey, you are so awesome. Stay safe and keep doing what you're doing.
BAILEY, NOTICE ME
You and Mark are the 2 people i hoped would see this... done and done
I grew up a Jays’ fan and remember how great Eichhorn was. His 86 season was unbelievable. Years later, his sister was in my RCIA group in Los Altos, Calif.
I still don’t know why this guy isn’t more famous and why more pitchers aren’t trying to imitate him like they would imitate other star pitchers. Great video
Teams want 1) velocity 2) rpms, that's what they pay for
because he played on "that team from Canada", same reason Steib doesn't get the credit he deserves in baseball history. (like fact Jack Morris is in the Hall and Dave isn't is a disgrace. They were the same damn pitcher and Steib was probably even slightly better than Morris in terms of WAR)
Did you see his overall record? He fulfilled his niche in 1986 wonderfully, but after that it appears they caught up to him, still providing that niche, but was no Henke.
The thing is that any major league hitter can LEARN to hit against him . . . and they did, which is why he didn't stay on top for long. But as something you haven't learned how to hit, he's impossible.
@@ajm5007 , These Pro baseball players are used to the "heat" and not so much with the finesse and control. Greg Maddux threw faster than Eichorn, and was able to maintain the superior finesse and control for many years. I realize that Maddux wasn't a relief pitcher so that changes things.
The best part is that after they figured him out he figured out a new system to still make it work. Great example of why baseball is so great.
This is the greatest MLB documentary ever written/produced….by far. I tip my cap to the man who wrote and narrated this masterpiece of minutiae.
Nice delivery
Thanks for the kind words! "Produced" is an overstatement... it was thrown together in Microsoft Photos Legacy over a weekend
that stomp he does right as their about to swing is actually so powerful i cant get enough of it
Another interesting tidbit about Mark is that he coached his son Kevin’s team to a Little League World Series appearance. Kevin later pitched in the minor leagues and was once traded for Armando Galarraga, who famously came one out shy of throwing a perfect game if not for an absurd blown call by ump Jim Joyce.
Joyce was a good ump, who blew the call that umps blow the most. But it was a great moment the next day when the crowd gave him a standing ovation after he had apologized the night before on tv. The old man in blue broke down in tears.....the Galarraga was a true gentleman about the whole thing. Great sportsmanship.
Baseball is beautiful
@@joemarshall4226 I remember watching that game.. Considering the rarity of the situation and how hard it is to achieve, I would not have been as forgiving as Armando was. I would've called for his job.
@@davidg1612 Armando was pretty classy, though, you have to admit
As a lowly tigers fan I'll never forget that random weekday. Armando was so good that game u could tell after the 3rd something special was happening. Then Jackson makes the unbelievable catch in the 9th, then the call. Still don't know how in that moment Joyce went with the runner in that bang bang play. It's a perfecto u gotta give it to the pitcher if u think it was that close. Come to find out he was out by a full step. Still makes me sick to my stomach whenever I see it. So rare, n to lose it that way, disgusting
This video is an example of what makes RUclips (and it's content creators)
such a great part of the internet.
It manages to give everyone their 15 minutes of fame and allows niche specifics, become an entire video, with a lot of stats.
Perfect for us Stat geeks, that can look at the back of one baseball card, for 10 to 15 minutes. Just looking at stats and info.
Every card is a story to be discovered!!
If you ever do a Baseball card video, LMK. I'd love to help, no charge! Just for the love of the hobby
:)
EICHHORN WAS FINKLE, FINKLE WAS EICHHORN!
😂😂😂😂😂
I was looking for this comment.
EICHHORN WAS A MAN!!!! OH MY GOD, EICHHORN A MAN!?!?!?!?::::runs to the🚽🤢🪠🤮:::
😂👏
I played in a league Mark played in. I was not aware of who he was the first time we played. He was tall and threw side arm. An occasional 90mph over the top. No one could really hit anything. Lots of strike outs, foul tips. There was league buzz about him pitching for his Santa Cruz Blue Jays team. I got 2 dead bird hits and a swinging bunt to 3rd on one day. He made it a point to approach me during the game. He said “Hey, those count. They are good hits”. After the game, his wife and kids said good job-Mark likes seeing players still playing. What a great day and just a really great example of human kindness from him and his family.
Thank you Mark and Eichhorn Family.
I saw Eichhorn in Toronto, & what was particularly striking was how the manager would leave him in until hitters got used to him, then bring in Henke who would blow fastballs right by them. It was incredibly effective.
I got a hit off of Eichhorn in an adult league game played at Aptos high school back in 2006… then struck me out in 4 pitches the next AB… I think he ended the game with 15 K’s in 7 innings. Oh, and he hit a home run. He was almost unhittable when he wanted to be. I should also mention that he was a really good guy, even though he was on an entirely other level compared to everyone else on the field.
Always good to get some perspective on life, isn’t it? 😁
was he still throwing submarine style?
Aptos Mariners Field is still the nicest one in SC county
A former MLB player was on an entirely other level compared to everyone else? Go figure. How does that happen?
@@GrislyAtoms12 Nobody likes a pendejo.
I had all those Eichhorn cards. Always loved the Jays. I love 80’s baseball. Thank you!!
Free tv era 1980s & before & cable bill TV bill was born
And I love 80s music as well...that was a very very special dec
I was raised by 80s baseball, and although I remember Eichorn from baseball cards, I never knew his story. This is why I love baseball...great video!
Same here. Definitely remember his name from collecting
It's a shame he didn't get enough innings to win the ERA crown. I watched it all year, hoping he would have.....he would have destroyed the previous record, and his name would have gone down in history....
More important than getting an ERA crown, he lasted enough years in the major league to earn a full pension. An unbelievable feat with the ability he had. Living the good life.
@@joemarshall4226 Doesn't matter really. If a player can leave some kind of a good mark on baseball? Then he's already won.
This is especially true with such a middle man. This position doesn't get much glory to begin with.
@@hughdismuke4703 Agreed. I'd still love to see his name in the record books. Middle men are more important than closers IMHO. I think it's ridiculous that so many closers are in the Hall of Fame, when they only pitch around a thousand innings in their entire careers. Yet some really excellent starters with three or four times as many innings are left out.
I couldn't give a fuck about baseball, but stories of unusual personal achievement always pull me in. Well made video bro.
I remember Mark fondly. As a jays fan,my 15yr old self was truly excited every time I saw him on the mound. Whatever that hop off the mound was!?!…..it worked for the guy!
It was where he landed from the sidearm pitch. It put him in the perfect position for a line drive back at the mound. I was a pitcher and exactly like him. I didnt know it until 2003 when I seen his replays. I was in the same position he stood after his pitch.
Man, I love the way he came out of his delivery with that little hop, square to the plate and ready to field his position… a little like Ron Guidry!!
Baseball is so weirdly entertaining in surprising ways.
As batters got used to Eichhorn (admittedly making batters better), Eichhorn got better at tricking up batters. This elevating the game is rare and always inspiring.
When I was in high school around ‘90 I got paired up with Eichorn and another player I didn’t know at Dunedin Country Club when he was down for spring training with the Jays. Nice guy.
he deserves the John Bois treatment on Secret Base. They already did a masterpiece breakdown of fellow long time Blue Jay Dave Stieb.
Give this guy some time , hopefully he gets a little more into some enticing edits and music. Not every sports channel needs to be secret base. I agree though, jon bois sets a high bar.
9:39 LIB actually takes a shot at Dave Stieb lol
You had me in tears! How is it we never knew how effective Mark Eichhorn was - these many years into the Sabermetrics Era? I guess somebody knew - but I didn't.
Thank you for this revelation! Decades ago, Bill James speculated on why few modern pitchers adopted the sidearm or submarine delivery. Since then, I learned that Walter Johnson was a sidearm hurler: we're blessed to have footage of his deceptive, seemingly effortless de livery. One thing we didn't count on was the low velocity.
It's a good story that the league finally adjusted to the unhittable Eichhorn - only to have him descend to the Minors again and return to the Majors having made his adjustments. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this gem of a video!
Randy Johnson threw with something close to a sidearm delivery.
As a long-time Jays fan, I vaguely remember Eichhorn. I was a kid at the time he played for them and I did not go too deep into the stats back then. Nice to review those memorable few years.
Awesome teenage memories! As a Torontonian in the 80's - I loved watching Mark - the greatest days of baseball!
Thanks for sharing this story. More fans really need to get this reminder. Those side arm chuckers were something to see at the time!
K.C. Dann Queseberry now passed away... and Pittsburgh had Kent Tekulve in the 70s/80s...
Well presented and intriguing story. Props to Mark Eichorn from this Orioles fan. About the same time that Mark was having his remarkable '86 season I was washing out of high school baseball. I wish I could have made adjustments like he did.
One of the nicest guys of all time to ever play for The Jays. He used to come in to a restaurant I worked at near Skydome back in the day. What an awesome dude.
This is hilarious, inspiring and awesome. I don't even watch baseball and I still loved his story.
The Blue Jays' 1987 season ended with a 1-0 loss to Frank Tanana the next day; if they'd won, the team would have finished the season in a tie, and a playoff would have been necessary. By the way, that game-ending grounder through the legs of Manny Lee in game 161 was actually ruled a hit by the hometown scorer; I was stunned to find that out when I looked up the Retrosheet play-by-play a few years ago.
My Favorite pitcher Frank Tanana he threw some smoke ⚾️
You mean a ‘play-in’ game would have been necessary.
@@kevinanderson967 With the Angels. With the Tigers he threw almost as slow as Eichhorn.
Happy to see the You Tube algorithm award a small channel which has great, detailed content. Thanks.
That is astonishing and even as a lifelong Blue Jays fan I had no idea. In fairness I was in Grade 1 in his rookie season so I only really know him from the 2nd time around when he was with the WS winning teams but that is some mind blowing stuff. Nice shout out to Secret Base too, ha! I think they would dig what you're doing. Great video
Did you know that Alfredo Griffin and Dave Stewart are the only two men to have witnessed Kirk Gibson's home run in 1988 and Joe Carter's walk off in 1993.
Did I shout out Secret Base? I deleted my script for this video a couple months ago when it had 200 views. SB are legends though, i might quote them without realizing :)
@@lookitsbaseball8822 Yeah I think there was a little shout out to the Stieb documentary at one point very quickly. I watched it all the way through twice the first week it was out, it is magical.
Those Jay's teams in the first half of the '80s had a crazy eclectic mix of pitchers. Eichhorn, Henke, Stieb, etc. And for a couple years they were even managed by the legend Bobby Cox
I met Mark in 1987 at the Dixie mall. My father was a radio dj and they were broadcasting a show from the mall, they had Eichhorn, Henke, Wells, Mulliniks and Whitt on the show. I still have the autographed hat I got that day.
Did he misspell his name on your hat?
@@user-zr6pl6nb6z lol
Rance Mulliniks. Still one of my favorite baseball names
honestly had not heard his name in 30 years, his story is an inspiration for every player to never give up.
he had a strong impact on the game and changed hitting for years to come.
I have a idea for a quirky connection to two of the the most famous World Series home runs.
Alfredo Griffin was pinch hit for by Mike Davis before Kirk Gibson's walk off home run in 1988. Five years later, the same Griffin was the on deck hitter when Carter's home run walked off the Philadelphia Phillies in 1993. Griffin retired from baseball after Carter's walk off in 1993.
Dave Stewart was in the Oakland Athletics dugout in 1988 and in the Blue Jays dugout in 1993.
Dave Stewart and Alfredo Griffin are the only two players to witness Gibson's and Carter's walk off World Series home runs.
This is the kind of information I need in my life. Thank you.
I can connect the 1919 Black Sox Scandal to the Griffeys. How?
Dickie Kerr was the most honest of the 1919 White Sox. He won two of the three Chicago White Sox wins against Cincinnati in the 1919 World Series. After retiring, Kerr was Stan Musial's very first manager for the Daytona Beach Islanders in Class D ball.
Stan Musial and the Griffeys were born in Donora, Pennsylvania.
@@abrahammorrison6374 ok man you got it. I need to follow your channel. Go make a channel so you can do this stuff for money.
Eichhorn AND Henke were both in Ace Ventura Pet Detective, they were football players but they were change-ups....
This guy isn't famous because that wasn't the point he was trying to make.
He didn't want to be the best at anything. He wanted to be adequate enough to earn his keep. He didn't go for flashy and impressive heaters. Didn't go for crazy breaks. He went for doing exactly enough to not get hit, and not an ounce more. He got as close to the exact 100% of the quota, even if he had another 40% in him on top.
Because guess what, in time, the quota was raised as they started to figure him out. So he went back to the drawing board, and matched it again. He did what he needed to. He squeezed the absolute maximum out of his own body, his career and I believe his self satisfaction. The definition of running a marathon. Perfectly paced application of skill.
What a guy.
Walter Johnson did pretty well side arm.
Excellent video. I’ve always been fascinated by unique players in MLB. Back in the late 60’s the St.Louis Cardinals had a side arm pitcher named Don Dennis. He was a true side arm and performed pretty well.
Thanks for this. Eichhorn was my favourite Blue Jays pitcher.
My oldest son grew late. Very good athlete. I just played with him throwing knuckleballs in the yard. Hee was 5 foot 1 as a freshman and was just unhittable:) Fighter pilot now.
Loved Eichorn. I used to impersonate his jumping sidearm when I pitched.
My friends and I used to imitate him all the time in the backyard too
there's beauty in the low quality edits and just through narration alone...
I don't even know how this video got onto my recommendation but this was one nice narration voice.
That was interesting. While everyone loves flamethrowers, one thing that is often overlooked is movement. I'm sure his unusual throwing motion did have an effect on batters, but one thing you hinted at is how much the ball moved (the catcher had problems catching it). In that way, his pitches resemble a knuckleball. However, I think when you combine that with the underarm motion, it makes it especially wicked.
I think that movement of pitches is far underappreciated. You hear people attributing Maddux's success to how smart he pitched, and while yeah, that might have something to do with it, I think a lot more of it had to do with movement. Watch his pitches, they dance everywhere. Moreover, movement, or better, loss of movement, is a better explanation for his decline. It's not like he got any dumber in his pitching. What more likely happened is that his pitches just straightened out.
Oh by the way, if no one has mentioned it, Jenny Finch's 68 mph pitch on the softball diamond is nothing like a 70 mph baseball pitch. Given the mound is that much closer, it is more like the 90 mph fastball.
I can only imagine how the 80mph softball pitches look
back in the days everyone said that david wells had a great curve ball but that he throwed it too much, not enough mixing with fast ball and change up... well he ended with an awsome career throwing his crazy sidearm curvies, sometimes 3-4 times in a row
I remember a book "Baseball-istics" teaching the physics of baseball and one pitcher was a slow, junkball pitcher and the other was a fireballer. Mid-game the starters get relived, and the fireballer was replaced by a similar but slower pitcher and gets rocked. The junkballer gets replaced by a regular pitcher and he shuts down the other side, used to the junkball the new guy looks fantastic.
And how about the Aptos Little League team that Mark coached to the Williamsport World Series!!
Not only was this educational but very wholesome. Thanks for sharing, mate!
Now that's a real man. Makes his own way and wins. Well done Mark!
I saw him pitch with the Orioles. Definitely one of the more unorthodox styles I've ever seen. The way he jumped off the mound had to throw off the batter's interpretation of what was coming at them at those speeds.
It would be nice to see a piece on Mike Flanagan. He was a lefty pitcher who played mostly for the Orioles in the late 70's and early 80s. He was awarded the Cy Young award and he was a slow pitcher but very effective. He passed away by suicide in his home. That was in 2011. Thanks
I remember having his baseball cards.
He was who I thought of when I saw the video title.
Rather than give up on life, all should know God can save them.
Makes great horror movies too.
My son and I recently got into pitching because of our interest in physics. We're also fans of comedy. This channel has been instrumental in teaching us the basics, and what the best are able to do with a perfect amount of funny. Combined with understanding strategy more now were gonna be better spots fans. My son made a point both correct and insightful as we both learned together about what these pitchers do. It's the fact that we can do things like this that we dominate the planet. Humans can throw and sweat enough to enable long hunts over herbivores. These guys are among the planets best examples of people who have honed these skills to the point of near superhuman ability. We also appreciate the facts about "understandings" and do's and don't because we're only just getting started. Thanks for the helpful visualizations too. We didn't know what to look for. Keep it up!
Love the way he does a sumo pose after every pitch
Dangit. I knew hitter metrics of all time were gonna come up, and i knew my 2 Orioles were gonna be on there. Dang it, it's hard to have been an O's fan since the early 90s.
I was a big fan of Mark Eichhorn. I was lousy at darts, but Inspired by Mark Eichhorn I taught my self to throw side arm. Then after someone beat me at darts, I would play them but we both had to throw sidearm. I never lost those games. Mark, thanks for all those free beers .
I am sitting here in the Italian. Tomato coffeeshop in Fujimino City, trying to gems brain rehabbed enough to continue studying the kanji. So I stop and plug into RUclips and here you are. With the story of Eich and the Jays…this is the most impressive article I have read in 2023. thanks . BTW what is Eichhorn doing now? Where is he?
He may have been slow, but the movement he got from the ball was massive. Amazing to see how far he got it to swing and in both directions, too.
@ Laurie Harper: I just wonder how a spin bowler in cricket would go, bowling say leg spin, full tosses as per normal cricket overarm action. Considering Shane Warne used to get over 2 foot of drift in the air from right to left facing the batter... wonder how difficult that would be to hit? Add to the fact his other variations, suspect a 50 m.p.h. bowler would be a nightmare in baseball.
@@111jacare I think you'd get a this is unhittable reaction for a few pitches followed by a this is easy reaction some time later.
I don't think the variations a spin bowler has would help as much as you think if all they're bowling is full tosses.
I'm a spin bowler and there's no way I'm teaching myself to bowl full tosses.
I would be interested in how a baseball seam behaves differently because I have no doubt it's very different.
Blue Jays had so many "secrets" back in the 80s. "that team from Canada" never really got the respect it deserved, even through the back 2 back WS wins. Wasn't really until Rogers/Sportsnet began really pushing the team as a bonafide MLB Market. But I digress. I remember growing up watching this guy and along with Steib were my two favorite players on the Jays. Steib > Eichhorn > Henke > Ball Game, it was almost a lock every time. When he was initially moved off the team it was such a gut punch to young me...why would they get rid of him, he is a lock!.
But then he came back and helped win championships...and life was good and made sense again.
Great video, its kind of sad players on the Jays never had the exposure they deserved back in the day....but now 30 someodd years later revisiting their stories with my much improved knowledge of the game really drives home just how special they were and how spoiled we were as fans to have such a stable of unique talents like Mark.
I always loved watching Jamie Moyer pitch, someone with similar style and velocity to Eichhorn. Major League hitters just struggle so much against this "slow, slower and slowest" strategy.
Jamie Moyer won a hella lot of games throwing slow. 🙂
Remember Dave LaRoche with the lob? He struck Gorman Thomas out with it once.
I was playing Strat-o-matic Baseball in those days and LOVED the Mark Eichhorn cards from 86 and 87. Those were the days!
This is a great video. Thanks for putting it together. I'm not even a big baseball fan but I can appreciate greatness. His stats and your video.
I don't know anything about baseball, but this appeared in my recs, I clicked on it, and it's quite fascinating.
FYI: A 70 MPH softball is the equivalent of a 101.2 MPH baseball. The softball mound is about 45 feet from the batter's box. The baseball mound is 60.6 feet from the batter's box. Jennie Finch was 6 foot 1 inch in height. With her long stride she's almost at 38 feet from the batter's box plus a couple for arm length from which the ball actually releases. Very tough to hit for someone conditioned to see the ball from an underhand angle much harder for someone who doesnt hit underhand pitching. I dont know why Finch is always mentioned in these comparisons. There are men's fast pitch softball leagues where a softball pitch has been clocked at 100MPH. Get a 6 foot 5 inch male pitcher on a softball mound throwing 100 MPH. Who is going to hit that? Now if a softball pitcher can throw underhand from the pitching mound distance 100 MPH - then I'm impressed.
What a treat to run across this video. My chums and I, llke most Torontonians, were Jays-obsessed at this time as the team were in the genesis of becoming what they would eventually be.....a powerhouse. Eichorn and the Terminator were by far our favourites on a team that had plenty of players to admire.
Anyone could’ve been him, but only he did it. Truly a pitching savant.
All I got to say is VERY COOL. The journey, the comments, the figure 8 of life. Great videos dude. I love going back in time like this.
he has a cool story. they should make a movie of him because i know they would make some funny jokes about the speed of his pitch. And seeing his comeback would be cool. the dips and rises of his career would be cool to see. May need to have a show or be a film with multiple sections for all the aspects of his life.
I'm British,have no knowledge about baseball,not even that interested in it , but I liked this video a lot because it was inspiring and quite funny. He seems an awesome bloke too
There is not a better feeling than either pitching or a catching a perfect strike with a knuckle ball. Time stands still.
Not sure why the algorithm picked up this vid and started showing this to me and apparently everyone else, but I'm glad it did. 80s and early 90s baseball was magic.
beautifully done. him and quiz were my heroes growing up. I changed my delivery in HS baseball because of this man.
I used to pitch Fastpitch softball, and I was enamored of those two, Kent Tekulve and the Mets' Terry Leach....Terry was made a starter one year, and he went 11-1! I think it was '87. I wanted to do a sports video of them pitching, with the hit song of the time "I Come from the Land Down Under" playing in the background. We don't see submariners any more. But Walter Johnson was one,a nd he is often touted to be the best pitcher ever......
@@joemarshall4226 i remember leach being the best of everyone not named Gooden. That was the year after they won the WS. Non baseball people dont realize how disruptive it is to have a strange delivery. Valenzuela in 80-81 with his "look to the sky" delivery and Nomo in 95 with his 180 rotation, back to the batter with a long pause delivery both operate on the same principle. Disguising the angle of delivery really plays with batters heads and shortens the time available to recognize and react to the pitch.
@@jasonmgomez Bill James said that he thought one of the reasons for the offensive explosion of the mid to late 90s was "cookie cutter deliveries"....all the pitchers went ot camps to learn how to throw. Meanwhile, Pedro was mowing them down throwing from three different arm angles, and five different pitches from each one!
@@joemarshall4226 that guy was a total nightmare for hitters. always nice to meet like minded baseball people! Cheers!
Not Tekulve? Aww
I love the quotes you added! "We could mark the days of our lives..." Good find in baseball history!
Never thought I'd watch a 16+ minute video about baseball, but here I am 🙃 awesome stuff, this is the method I used to pitch, but I was also 11 and couldn't throw faster 😂
Thanks for the video. I remember this year, and Eichhorn. He was insane. But, I never saw him pitch, as it was before the internet, and I only could watch the Cubs and Braves. So; i did not know he was a side arm frisbee thrower =)
Never knew about this guy until now but what a legend.
Aptos, CA and our semi-pro team met up with his semi-pro team in the championship game. Forget about his velocity, or lack there of, the guy was a helluva competitor. Very fierce competitor out on that mound. Little known fact: he started out as a shortstop at, I think, DeAnza College. He was a baseball player, not just a pitcher. Pretty good hitter, too.
To be fair, Dave Winfield threw his bat all the time. I loved Mark. I threw sidearm in high school and college. My heroes were Mark, Kent Tekulve and Quiz. In fantasy baseball we called Mark "the Ricky Henderson of pitchers" because he could do it all.
But did he talk about himself in the third person like Ricky?
@@christco120 "people ask,'Rickey, why don't you say'me?' "
@@teen_laqueefa "this is Rickey, calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey is ready to play baseball"
I was stuck home watching three little kids most nights during those years. I lived near NYC and watched the Mets and Yankees games. There was one stretch where Dave threw his bat at the ball five times over a few weeks...but here's the thing. He HIT the ball every time (what are the odds against that?) He hit it FAIR every time. (What are the odds against that?) He got a base hit on it each time! (That's impossible! Mostly infield singles in the hole between short and third) One of the hits was a DOUBLE! (a bloop single that he hustled into a double). The amazing thing was the commentators didn't make a big deal about it! They didn't realize how many times it had happened, or they didn't realize how rare it was or I don't know what, but I was standing, yelling at my black and whit tv! "I can't believe it!" Maybe it was only four times...but it wasn't three, and he definitely hit a double. It might have been the year he lost the batting crown to Mattingly on the last day fo the season....hit .340 or thereabouts. I think Donnie Baseball went 4 for 5 on the final day....the one year Wade Boggs didn't win it.
@@joemarshall4226 He really did throw the bat all the time. You also reminded me of the time Boggs sat out the last 4 games to win the batting title and how Mattingly fell just short.
I follow little baseball. Your depth and explanation of Eichhorn's prowess and the mark he made in baseball is exceptional. Like I said, I don't watch much baseball and pretty much no very little stats. Your video held my attention for the full 16:45! That alone, should say something.
This guy was my pitching coach growing up. We’d drive to his house during the off season and got sick lessons. His kid was a stud as well. Good dude who loves Jesus.
Right on bro. What a cool dude. Glad he got your stoke levels up.
Ew so he was a pedo?
@@stephanjones8424 absolutely 🙏
oh how cool....
@@WestsiderSC Grown men believing children's stories is nothing to boast about. It's like saying you believe in Santa.
I especially like how he follows through on delivery into a "ready" stance, where he's better prepared for the ball than other pitchers thanks to the extra time the ball takes to get there.
Plus the "he doesn't get tired" aspect of this would allow clubs to spend less money on pitchers in general.
How did the side-arm pitch not freaking explode after this? It's like Moneyball for pitchers (and I think a submarine pitcher was featured in that book/movie).
This video represents the best of RUclips. Excellent work.
Well done 👏🏼 thank you for your work on this. The history of the greatest game ever is priceless. Getting to share it with my 8 year old is priceless.
Analytics of today would never let this gem come to light. I'd love to watch this in 2023.
That rant starting at 8:35 almost brought me to tears it was so funny. Good video man.
Since WAR is a cumulative stat, Eichhorn's 1986 season is aided by the fact that it's eighth all time for innings pitched by a reliever, and no one since then has come near that total -- with the next closest being Eichhorn himself the very next year (tied with 1990 Duane Ward). In fact there have only been seven relievers with as many as 120 IP in a season since 1986, and none since 1990. Only six relievers have reached 100 IP in the 21st century.
Funny enough this happened in WW2 with air defence. Often the Royal Navy's Fairey Swordfish biplane aircraft sunk tons of axis shipping while rarely being shot down because air defence gunners were used to targeting far more modern, faster aircraft.
Great story! I have always been fascinated by Mark Eichhorn and his delivery
Thanks for the research, I remember this overlooked relief pitcher. I go back to when Ted Abernathy pitched for the Reds in the mid 1960's.
This reminds me of a kid that I played baseball with in high school. He had this crazy knuckle-ball that nobody could hit, it was so weird coming at you. The best I ever did against his knuckler was to get a foul-tip.
Great video, knew who this was before even starting the video....hey thats Mark!
Went to high school with him , remember him as a nice guy a great athletic. Shout out Watsonville, the Wildcats and to Eichhorn...
Great times the 70s.
I remember watching him play for the AAA Syracuse Chiefs (farm team for Toronto back then) back in the 80s when I was a kid. I grew up a Toronto Blue Jay fan watching stars like Eichhorn, Tom Henke, Tony Fernandez, George Bell, and Fred McGriff there before they made it to the big leagues.
This guy was phenomenal. I was a kid and he went about 11-1 or something. Throwing sidearm.
great video! Eichorn seems to have changed/influenced the game twice with his adjustments, pretty cool.
Most people can't hit any speed over 60mph, so Mark was ALWAYS considered a FANTASTIC pitcher, who earned his spot TWICE, on Toronto's CHAMPIONSHIP teams & he played BIG roles on both of them #salute
That description of the pitch being so slow that you had time to analyze your whole life as the ball came towards you was HILARIOUS. Between that and the dude’s mustache and chubby face looking just like Jack Black in Nacho Libre, I just about lost it.
It wasn't the velocity ... it was the great movement that made him so tough.
Exactly