Perhaps only the Barry Bonds home-run chase and maybe the Derek & A-Rod he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not relationship will generate as much excitment and human drama as the new Red Sox import from Japan and his mysterious gyroball.
He could be as much a phenom as Mark Fidrych and Dwight Gooden when they debuted. And he could be just as dominant, especially in the early going. I predict he will light up Fenway Park in the spring with multiple games of 10 or more stikeouts (or ストライクアウト if you're scoring in Japanese).
The Red Sox will hold their collective breaths and hope so, especially those who signed off on the $50 million dollar plus posting fee to sign him. In addition to the scrutiny this unprecednted initial investment brings, this guy may also hold the key to the Sox pitching fortunes this year, along with sophomore Jonathan Papelbon and the health and fitness of Curt Schilling.
Some interesting websites that are analysing this new pitch:
Alan Nathan's The Physics of Baseball Website and other references:
http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/gyro.html
This site has some nice videos of "the pitch"
http://accc.riken.jp/E/HPC_e/gyroball/
And ESPN checks in with The Demon Sphere
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=gyroballsearch
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