What's the Gyroball and Does Dice-K Have It?

Daisuke Matsuzaka draws crowds. He draws sellout crowds at nearly every baseball game he plays. Media from around the world, particularly his native country Japan, flock to see him play. His reputation as a pitcher is becoming legendary, and he's only 26. Everywhere he goes, there seems to be one word that follows him: gyroball.

In 2006 the Boston Red Sox bid $51.11 million for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka. Yes, $51.11 million just for the right to negotiate with him. He later signed on with the team for an additional $52 million, six-year contract. The new Boston Red Sox player is now better known by his nickname, Dice-K.

So what's Dice-K got that the Red Sox want so badly? For starters, he spent eight years with Japan's Seibu Lions, earned Japan's equivalent of the Cy Young Award, led Pacific League victories, and was MVP of the World Baseball Classic last year. Dice-K has been a star player since back in his days at Yokohama High where he pitched a no-hitter game in the national championship in 1998. There's one more important thing about Dice-K: he claims to know how to throw the mythical gyroball.

The gyroball is potentially the first new pitch to hit the major league scene since the split-finger fastball was first thrown by Bruce Sutter in 1976.

Ryutaro Himeno, described as both a physicist and a computer scientist, invented the gyroball when he created simulations of spinning baseballs using a computer program. The gyroball is theoretically a new pitch that is thrown to spin clockwise or counterclockwise like a football.

Pitches rely on gravity, air resistance, and lift to spin and speed through the air toward hitters. Most pitches tweak some element of lift and spin, but the gyroball is actually thrown like a football, creating a unique gyroball spin and motion. Skeptics believe the gyroball doesn't exist, or is just a variation on a screwball or a backdoor slider. Some say even if the gyroball exists in theory, it can't really be mastered. Some are calling the gyroball the Loch Ness Monster of baseball.

In theory the gyroball would spin like a football and break sideways 1.5 to 2 feet away from the hitter creating a nearly impossible pitch to hit. In practice, the gyroball is a tricky skill at best and no one has come forward to say they've mastered it. Still, Dice-K has said he'd like to use the pitch if given the chance.

Researchers are already planning to study pitchers who claim to be able to throw a gyroball. Alan Nathan is a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He said in an interview on (sportingnews.com) that he is planning to study gyroballs with high-speed cameras. Other researchers will likely follow suit as physicists study the supposed nature of the gyroball. The American Sports Medicine Institute will likely be studying the gyroball as well.

As for Dice-K, he is a skilled pitcher even without the gyroball. He uses at least six different traditional pitches, more than most major league pitchers regularly use in their arsenal. So if anyone is going to attempt the mythical gyroball, no doubt Dice-K will.

Online satirical site The Onion did a story about Dice-K and his mythical gyroball where they jokingly referred to his gyroball as his "Ultimate Galactic Dragon Gyroball Pitch Power Explosion". If Dice-K does break out the gyroball, it will prove skeptics wrong and potentially win over even more Dice-K fans.

Dice-K is only two games into his career with the Red Sox as of this writing. His performance thus far has been decent but some critics argue he hasn't lived up to the hype.

In his first MLB game against the Orioles he gave up four runs and six total hits. After the game he told journalists through his interpreter that he was testing out the players and the field. Time will tell if the Red Sox's $103 million investment in Dice-K will pay off, with or without the gyroball.

One thing is true for now, journalists and spectators packed the training camp and the the games he's played so far this season. They will probably continue to do so in the hopes they'll be there if Dice-K decides to throw out the mythical gyroball.