Baseball Pitch Sketches

A peek at some of the sketches and scribbles that led to the creation of the Baseball Pitch Diagrams.

I initially set out to capture the speed, break, and movement of the pitches in a single diagram for each pitch, showing the trajectory from the catcher’s perspective. As I got further along in the process, some pitches become harder to identify, because I had trouble distinguishing movement and break (splitter and forkball were particularly difficult to render). Movement being the general direction the ball is moving and break being a sudden shift in direction. This led me to add small profile views that help make the difference in break more apparent. It can still be quite subtle.

From the previous post, here is the final work including all twelve pitch diagrams:

Baseball Pitches Illustrated

A fan’s guide to identifying pitches.

I‘m a baseball fan. I’ve watched my share of televised games and attended a few handful. After all this, I was still in the dark about the difference between pitches. I knew a curveball broke downwards, but what exactly was a circle changeup?

The diagrams below are the results of skimming through baseball books and doing online research. This is not a complete guide. I’ve picked twelve of the more common pitches:

• Fastballs: Four-seam, Two-seam, Cutter, Splitter, and Forkball
• Breaking Balls: Curveball, Slider, Slurve, and Screwball
• Changeups: Changeup, Palmball, Circle Changeup

Learning to Identify Pitches

The list of pitches might seem like a lot to keep track of, but remember that each pitcher utilizes only a selection of these pitches. For example, Pedro Martinez throws a curveball, circle-changeup, an occasional slider, and a fastball. Do a little research on the pitcher before the game.

Things to watch for that will help you identify a pitch:

• Speed
• Movement - the general direction the ball is moving
• Break - a sudden shift in direction

There are a few other things that can help you identify a pitch: ball rotation, point of release, and grip. For a casual fan though, it might be a bit much and I don’t illustrate or discuss any of the latter three items.

Reading the Diagrams

Take note of the speed, movement, and break of the ball. Don’t worry about where the baseball is shown in the the strike zone. You can throw a fastball in the middle of the strike-zone like the one illustrated, or you can throw one high and away from the batter. It’s still a fastball. Location doesn’t determine the pitch.

I’ve collected all twelve of the pitch diagrams below, minus the text notes, into a single PDF:

Coffee Diagram Follow-up

Mugs, t-shirts, and source files now available

Answering requests, I have setup a Cafe Press store which offers the nine coffee cup illustration printed on all sorts of things. I have never purchased anything from Cafe Press, so fingers crossed the quality is decent. I bought myself a mug.

If you’re simply looking to print up a copy to fold up in your wallet, I’ve created a PDF file which contains all nine images.

Source File

If you’d like to extend or localize the illustrations you can grab the Adobe Illustrator source file. You can also open up this file in Adobe Photoshop, without the vector data, as a bitmap..

License Information

I’m offering the illustrations under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. What this allows for is the use and modification of the work for noncommercial purposes. I chose a non-commercial license because I do not want people to sell the image. If you want to use the image for educational purposes in a commercial space such as a website or cafe, you have my permission to do so. As for attribution, I ask that you leave my name and website address in the fine print.

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

Side-by-side diagrams of a few common espresso drinks.

I‘m new to the world of fancy coffee drinks. With the vast number of ordering options and new words with accented characters to pronounce the coffee shop ordering experience can be intimidating. I’ve created a few small illustrations to help myself and others wrap their head around some of the small differences.

About Espresso

Espresso is prepared by forcing pressurized steam through finely ground dark-roast coffee beans. Think of it is strong, concentrated coffee. You can add extra ’shots’ of espresso to make your drink stronger.

About the Diagrams

I gathered most of my information from Wikipedia and tidbits from other online sources. Know that drinks might be prepared a bit differently coffee shop to coffee shop, and especially country to country.