Nate & Kristen’s Weblog

I watched the Dodgers finish off the Mets tonight and got to to see Chad Bradford pitch the last inning for the Mets. Much of the inning was spent by the announcers hemming and hawing about how peculiar Bradford’s delivery was and one of them mused that he probably threw that way because an injury forced him. However, I know that not to be the case, or at least not the whole story. In Moneyball Michael Lewis sheds a little light on Bradford’s affinity for the underarm toss,

Not long before Chad’s second birthday his father suffered a stroke that nearly killed him, and left him paralyzed. The Doctors had told his father that he would never walk again. His father insisted that just wasn’t true. He looked up from his bed, stone faced, and announced his intention to raise his three boys and earn a living. Through an act of will which he also thought of as an act of God, he did just that. By Chad’s seventh birthday his father was able not only to walk but, in a fashion, to play catch with his son. He would never again be able to lift his arm over his shoulder, so he couldn’t throw properly. But he could get a glove up to stop a ball and after he caught the ball from Chad, he would toss it back to him underhanded. The strange throwing motion stuck in the little boy’s mind.

Playing catch with his father is one of the things that made Chad happiest…

Later in life when asked how he had become such a successful pitcher despite an apparent lack of athletic ability Bradford replied, “God had a plan for me.” I’m just glad that plan didn’t include closing out the Dodgers. Tonight anyways.