Duh!

The infamous knuckleball, that aerodynamic lie, has baffled more professional baseball players than the balk. A really good knuckler is almost always suspect (and sometimes with good reason) of being greased, scuffed or otherwise "juiced". Its difficulty to hit is legendary...so is pitching one. For the precious few who can pitch it, the knuckleball is a proven career extender.

The deception of the knuckleball is usually explained away as an optical illusion--the lack of spin making its speed hard to determine. Thus it's a fast ball that looks like a slow ball...or vice versa. But ask Major Leaguer who's ever tried to hit one and he'll tell you it will do a dance right in front of your eyes. A newspaper correspondent once described the magic, "It fluttered, dropped, shifted to the right, shifted to the left, ordered a sandwich, grabbed a beer, and went to bed."

Science has typically scoffed at this notion. That a ball in flight could change directions more than once was said to be an aerodynamic impossibility. (Of course, much the same was said about bumblebees.) However, using computer studies, scientists now suggest that the lack of spin may combine with a baseball's asymmetrical stitching to make it vulnerable to even the slightest breeze. Factor in weight differentials caused by an ever-so-slow roll, temperature and humidity factors, and you have an odd sort of inertia wherein a ball may have the capacity to switch directions--more than once--in flight.

Heck, any batter who ever faced Charlie Hough could tell you that.

Acknowledgments: 22, 23, 24. Special thanks to Cara France.

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