That's the fun part. Right now, the gyroball is akin to Keyser Soze. A mystery. One report claims the pitch breaks twice. Another says it bends like a screwball. Most big leaguers haven't even heard of the thing. So if we find the truth? We'll have captured the Loch Ness Monster, beating everyone else to the sports story of the year. The decade, even.

As for your other question: I absolutely need to visit Tokyo. The gyroball supposedly was invented by Japanese scientists. On a supercomputer. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!

Wow. I think you're right. That first YouTube pitch resembles a slider, and the other … well, you can't see much of anything. Stupid batter. Doesn't he realize he's standing in the way of baseball history?

Did a little digging. Know those fridge-sized computers that control the nuclear defense grid and can thump Kasparov at chess? Researchers measure their processing power with the Himeno Benchmark Test, named after Japanese scientist Ryutaro Himeno — the same guy who supposedly invented the gyroball.

Found one of Himeno's web pages. Link is below. Check out the movies, which appear to be gyroball-related.

http://cfd-duo.riken.go.jp/indexc.htm

PS — Al Capone's vault? I don't get the reference.

Flight is all set. Just waiting for Himeno to reply before buying the ticket. Sorta odd, since I sent him a note two weeks ago. Must be a busy man.

And yeah, I agree: those movies look like something out of a Dire Straits video. Or maybe "Tron."

Bad news. I e-mailed Wayne Graczyk, an ex-pat American who writes a baseball column for the English-language Japan Times. Figured we could meet up in Tokyo, grab a beer, talk gyroball.

Here's his response:

Patrick, Sorry, but I have never heard of the gyroball. It sounds like a hoax to me.

All the best,

Wayne G.

Whatever. Graczyk's probably working on a big gyroball feature and doesn't want to get scooped.

Told you this thing was big.

Okay, this is starting to get weird. I just got off the phone with Bobby Valentine — the former big league manager who's now running the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japan League — and he says the gyroball is a crock. Good PR, but nothing more. See the transcript below.

---------------------------------------------------------

Q: Does Daisuke Matsuzaka throw a gyroball?

A: The guy has pitched against my team for three years. I've seen every pitch he's thrown during that time. I've talked to all my hitters. I have about 800 of his pitches on video from this year, at least as many from last year. Those are just against my team. We also have all the pitches he threw against all the other teams.

The gyroball has never been in our scouting report.

Q: So it isn't real?

A: It's a goof. It would be great if you could throw something that broke late and broke three feet. But you can't. You'd need 13-inch fingers. The ball would have to be jet-propelled.

Q: What about the link to Matsuzaka?

A: I talked to Matsuzaka. My understanding is that some professors presented to him that if you threw the ball in a certain way, the ball would react in a certain way. In a real closed environment — probably just him and a catcher — he may have tried to do some things.

Q: Where are all these rumors coming from?

A: There's a lot of people who played baseball when they were young, and they quit when pitchers starting throwing the curveball — which starts by coming at the hitter before breaking over the plate. In their minds, that ball broke three feet; as you get older, it broke four feet. But in reality, it broke a few inches. And that was enough to make accountants out of people.

Yeah, I suppose a freelance photographer should suffice. I'm surprised broadcast didn't express more interest. Did you show them my diagram?

As for Carroll, you're off-base. Granted, some big league teams have blown him off. But that's only because baseball is clubby and hidebound, forever fearing the new. You've read "Moneyball," right?

Carroll is genuine. Been chasing this pitch for years. Story goes like this: in 2002, someone in one of our online chats asks Rob Neyer about the gyroball. Neyer knows nothing, so he asks Carroll. Carroll knows even less, but happens to be a bit obsessive. And by a bit, I mean a lot.

He hunts around. Stumbles across an internet message board where the posters are talking gyroball. They have pictures, too — diagrams detailing pitch spin and force vectors, rife with Japanese text, apparently scanned from a book. Carroll's intrigued. By sheer coincidence, he has a friend visiting Tokyo, who finds the book and drops it in the mail. Takes about a month.

The wait kills Carroll. Kills him. Eventually, he gets the package. He rips off the packing tape … and figures the book's a joke. A prank. There are photos of Troy Aikman and Pedro Martinez, baseball airflow charts, panels from Japanese comic books. One illustration has what looks like a witch — maybe it's a goblin — yanking on a pitcher's elbow. Check it out.

Anyway, Carroll's stubborn. He plows through the pages, even though he can't read kanji. He makes a mistake, mixing up the gyroball with a Japanese pitch called the shuto — in essence, a reverse slider — and then pens an erroneous article for Neyer.

Oops. Carroll's embarrassed. But he can't let it go.

Bullet spin. That's the key. Problem is, Carroll can't figure out how to make a baseball whirl like a football, let alone what football spin makes a baseball do. The gyroball is a crossword puzzle; Carroll doesn't have the box. So he takes a sharpened screwdriver, jams it through a ball. He sits by his computer, spinning the pierced ball, hours at a time. He hangs out at an indoor baseball facility near his suburban Indianapolis home, Batter's Edge, trying to throw the pitch. Only he can't get the ball to break. Ever. Days become months. For an entire year, Carroll tells no one. Not a soul. But he never loses faith, never stops plugging away …

Look, I could go on. I think you get the point. Give my contact info to the photographer, okay?

PS — Bring a tinfoil batting helmet? Good one. Har har.

That's what they call the gyroball in Japan. Honest. Says so on my computer screen. I found the gyroball book! Right on Amazon.jp. Everything's in kanji, so I ran the whole page through Google translation. Himeno is one of the authors. And get this: the English title reads "Natural Shape of the Demon Sphere."

Awesome. Just awesome. Already placed an order. Should arrive in a week or so. Expect an expense report.

PS — SEARCHING FOR THE DEMON SPHERE. How's that for a headline?

Relax. Followed up with Allen. Think he's the one. His fastball tops off in the low 80s, so the Tennessee Tech coaches don't have much use for him. He needs something special, the way Sutter needed the splitter. Makes him willing to try anything, no matter how bizarre.

Also, he's seen the gyroball before. Honest. When Allen was in eighth grade, a friend took a family vacation in Tokyo. Came back with a comic book. A baseball comic book. Featuring the gyro.

(Of course, this means the Japanese have known about the pitch for at least seven years. Seven years! That's a bigger head start than Sputnik).

Fast forward to last spring. Allen spies the gyroball info on the knuckleball message board. Resolves to learn the pitch. Crazy, right? Only get this: Allen taught himself to throw through online instructions. Guess what? As a high school senior at Hume-Fogg High, he pitched 13 innings of shutout ball in a 14-inning, 15-strikeout, 187-pitch win over rival Portland High. I looked it up myself. This kid is determined.

One more thing: Allen is a world-class Yo-Yo spinner — ranked in the top 100, no joke — which means he's familiar with spiraling things from the Far East.

Good enough for you?

PS — Allen sent me some comic scans. Check them out.

You heard, huh? It rained. All day. Couldn't see a thing on the drive from Nashville to Cookeville. The Tennessee Tech infield was a soggy mess. Had to go indoors. Place looked like a converted barn — wood beams across the ceiling, more tarp for walls, a concrete floor topped with narrow strips of worn plastic turf. Everything painted green, the color of a John Deere lawn tractor.

As for the really bad news? I don't think Allen throws the gyroball. He had the fastball arm motion and the bullet spin … but the break on his ball was nothing dramatic. Resembled Palazzolo's pitch on that CBS piece. Might have dropped a bit more. I dunno.

Anyway, we got some pics. Not sure what's next. Had high hopes for this. Give me a few days to regroup.

Whoa. Turns out Niezer threw the gyro in games, maybe two dozen times. Never yielded a hit. Left batters bailing. Left umpires baffled. Burke's favorite story? Niezer's up in the count. Tosses a gyroball. Batter thinks the ball is going to peg him. He steps forward in the box … only to jump backward as the pitch veers over the plate for a called strike.

Like I said: whoa.

Met with Burke and Carroll at a brewpub outside Indianapolis. Burke's 29, a software engineer and a self-confessed baseball geek. He actually met Carroll at the same pub, at a Baseball Prospectus pizza party back in 2004.

Carroll was finishing his pitching book. Burke had just become pitching coach at Oldenburg, a former all-girls school with a nascent baseball program. The two struck up a friendship. Carroll started working with Burke's pitchers — and while driving to Chicago for a White Sox game, he told Burke about the gyroball. They agreed to show the pitch to Niezer — far and away the most talented pitcher on the Oldenburg staff — and Burke's brother, Devon.

Devon is a gifted athlete — he now plays soccer at Wabash, where Niezer pitches — but couldn't get the ball to break. Instead, he beaned a nine-year-old kid.

Next came Niezer. The ball spun. Broke sideways. Bingo! Gyro! Carroll was ecstatic, in part because he realized that he wasn't completely crazy.

(Hey, almost forgot: that grainy footage of Niezer throwing the gyroball? It was filmed on Burke's digital camera. Or maybe Carroll's. They don't remember, exactly. You think Abraham Zapruder had the same problem?)

Following lunch, Burke and I drove to Oldenburg's home field, Liberty Park in Batesville. Really neat place. Grandstand is like 100 years old. There's no outfield fence, just a row of miniature pine trees. Bullpen is about five feet from a rainbow-colored jungle gym.

I stood on the mound. Had to do it. Here it was: the gyroball's Plymouth Rock. Gave me goose bumps. Burke found that amusing. In fact, he and Carroll agreed: if they were making the pitch up, Batesville is the last place they'd pick for its stateside unveiling. They're probably right. Then again, the Magi found Jesus in a dinky little manger, right?

Anyway, I'm gonna grab dinner. Still waiting on Niezer. I'll hit Wabash tomorrow.

PS — Guess who appeared on the above-bar flat screen while I was having lunch with Burke and Carroll? Matsuzaka. There are no coincidences.

I'm at the airport. Heading home. Niezer stuff fell through. See below.

> From: Niezer, Joseph

> To: Hruby, Patrick

> SUBJECT: RE: ESPN.COM INTERVIEW REQUEST

Patrick:

The thing is I've never thrown a gyroball in a game. I don't really know anything about the physics of the pitch or even exactly how to throw it.

The few times I messed around with it in practice it seemed like just a different way to throw a slider. It definitely broke a little bit, but no more than my slider did.

To answer your question, it was more of a sideways spin and break. I don't ever remember a downward break. I throw kind of sidearm as it is, so a 12-6 type downward break would be almost impossible for me to create. I do not really remember throwing it in BP. I may have a couple of times, but I don't remember any specific results.

The batter Bill described was probably just reacting to my slider breaking from behind him over the plate.

Hope this helps!

Joey

Actually, I'm at the downtown Radisson RIGHT NOW. Lobby is packed with Cards fans. Some are even sober!

This was a great idea. Masa's fantastic. Been going over the book for the last 45 minutes. It's a gold mine. For instance, the characters in the title don't just mean "demon sphere." They also mean "miracle pitch." And that yellow wraparound label on the front? Here's the translation, front and back:

IT EXISTS! SOME JAPANESE BASEBALL PLAYERS CAN THROW THE SECRET PITCH! WE CAN FILM THE GYRO PITCH AND YOU CAN BE A GYROBALLER!

Get this: in Japan, they sell special red and black baseballs that show exactly where to place your fingers in order to throw the gyroball. They have instructional DVD's, too. We should order one, pronto. Oh, and remember that gyroball comic? It's called "Major," and it's wildly popular. Masa says every kid in Japan knows about the gyro — which, by the way, wasn't invented on a supercomputer. At least not completely.

The story actually starts with Kazushi Tezuka, co-author of the book. He's a Japanese baseball trainer, works with kids and pros alike, has a "baseball dojo" in Tokyo. Think Tom Emanski. Anyway, it's the spring of 1995, and Tezuka's looking for a better way to throw a fastball. He's out shopping. Sees a video for an American toy called the X-zylo, a thin, fist-sized plastic cylinder that resembles a used roll of packing tape.

Apparently, the X-zylo flies really straight and really far. Spins like a bullet, too, which gets Tezuka wondering: Would the same spin make a pitch move faster? He gets the toy. It flies as advertised, as far as 100 meters. At the same time, Tezuka's working for the Orix Blue Wave, a Jleague club. The Blue Wave have this rookie outfielder, a converted high school pitcher named Ichiro — yeah, that Ichiro. He's a skinny kid, but has a hell of an arm. Throws the ball with a football-type spin. Even pronates his wrist — something Carroll told me was key to throwing the gyroball.

Tezuka starts tinkering. He meets Himeno. The two collaborate on computer models, enlist pro pitchers to help with experiments — in the book, there's a GREAT picture of Hideki Irabu, Mr. Fat Toad himself, wearing one of those black spandex motion capture suits — and come up with a bullet-spin pitch. They call it the gyroball — not because of the spin, but because "gyro" is the garbled English version of "X-zylo," Again, who knew?

Hey, looks like Masa is back from taking a call. Gotta go. More soon.

You wanna know? Really? I'll tell you: From the sidewalk next to the hotel, you can see the Arch. I hope it falls on my freaking head.

Seriously, I don't know where to begin. Everything's wrong. Unless I've made a huge mistake. Or Carroll messed up. Or Masa doesn't know what he's talking about.

!@@!%@!#%#@%^$#%!

Here's the deal: There are two types of gyroball, two-seam and four-seam, both with bullet spin. The latter is better for an overhand pitcher, the former for a sidearmer. Whatever. That's not what matters. What matters is this: According to the book, the gyroball doesn't break sideways. Not three feet. Not one foot. Not one inch. Nada, zilch, zippy. No left turn. That's not how it works. Instead, the pitch messes with a batter's timing. Looks faster than it actually moves. Comes in lower than expected. In essence, the gyroball is a glorified changeup.

Oh, and that's not the worst of it. According to Tezuka, the pitch probably isn't new. Not entirely. In the book, there's a whole chapter called "Searching for the Miracle," packed with pictures of Japanese pitchers like Yutaka Enatsu and Shunsuke Watanabe. Tezuka speculates that all of them may have thrown gyroballs — only they didn't know it!

(Get this: Masa thinks Matsuzaka has read the gyro book. He also thinks Jered Weaver may throw a gyro-style fastball. Seriously. Jered friggin' Weaver).

I'm lost. Totally lost. Gonna head to the airport. Hope you didn't get me a credential.

Couldn't care less about the World Series. Not after this.

Went over my notes from the gyroball book. I screwed up. Missed a few pages while talking to Masa. One of those pages has the gyro diagram I sent you, the one with the ball breaking sideways. Remember? Can't believe I was so careless.

I sent the scan to Masa. He's still at the Series and on deadline for this weekend, so it may take him a few days to look it over. In the meantime, chew on this: Supposed gyroballer Shunsuke Watanabe plays for the Chiba Lotte Marines … Bobby Valentine's team!

I knew Valentine was hiding something. Knew it.

PS — If I order one of those X-zylos, can I expense it?

That pitch in the diagram? It's a slider. An exaggerated slider. Masa cleared things up. Also said he'd help me get in touch with Tezuka, probably in the next two weeks. I still have this nagging feeling that we're missing something.

By the way, the X-zylo flies far. Real far. Tried it out for myself. According to the Web site that sells it, aeronautical engineers don't quite understand how the thing works — kinda ironic, considering I still don't understand what the same bullet spin does for a pitch.

It must have some effect. Right?

The Red Sox are spending millions on Matsuzaka. MILLIONS. We can't spend a mere $50,000 on a gyroball science experiment?

Sometimes, I really don't understand you.

Forget that science experiment. In fact, forget the whole stupid story. I'm done. Finito. Masa finally contacted Tezuka. He confirmed everything. The book translation. Nathan's calculations. Himeno's diagrams. They're basically accurate. Is the gyroball real? Sure. Does it have a miracle three-foot sideways break? Uh-uh.

I should have known better.

Those instructional DVD's I told you about? Tezuka sent me a set. They're in Japanese. No subtitles. Doesn't matter. You can see how the ball moves. Clear as day. It breaks, sure. But not like a Harrier jump jet.

Heck, I even showed the pitch to Baldwin, just to make sure I knew what I was looking at. He says the gyroball is actually a "back-up slider" -- a pitch that's been around for decades, a pitch that hurlers have tried to avoid because they consider it a … mistake.

A mistake! My thoughts exactly. Anyway, if you're still interested, you can watch the clips. Take a gander.

The dream is dead.