Catcher - Personal Catcher

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