Personal Catcher
Because of the close mental relationship and trust that a successful pitcher must have with his catcher, a number of catchers throughout history have become preferred by pitchers on their teams, to the point that that catcher will almost always (especially during the regular season) start along with the pitcher. The catcher is then informally referred to as that pitcher's personal catcher.
Naturally, the potential problem with this arrangement is that if the pitcher prefers to work with the team's backup catcher, then the regular catcher -- presumably the better player -- must be benched. However, this is somewhat leavened by the fact that, due to the physically grueling nature of the position, even "regular" catchers are normally asked to rest relatively frequently.
Personal catchers are often used for pitchers that specialize in throwing knuckleballs, due to the difficulty of catching such an inconsistent and erratic pitch.
Some personal catchers have included:
- Tim McCarver, for Steve Carlton
- Bob Uecker, for knuckleballer Phil Niekro
- Charlie O'Brien and Eddie Pérez, for Greg Maddux
- Doug Mirabelli, for knuckleballer Tim Wakefield
Read more about this topic: Catcher
Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)