Pic of the Week

San Francisco closer Sergio Romo fires a
pitch on Thursday against the Miami Marlins.

It's relatively easy to find a photo of a pitcher in mid-motion that makes one wince at the notion of contorting one's own arm into that position, and this is one such.

It's been oft-said — and I'm sure I've said it myself — that pitching is an unnatural motion, that the human arm is not designed for the act.

But it occurred to me during a recent dog park visit, watching other dog owners play fetch with their canines (my beagle is deeply uninterested in such activities) that humans are obviously designed to throw objects.

We stand erect. We have hands that can grasp objects, not paws. We have shoulders hinged for a wide range of motion. Other than our fellow primates, we are the creatures who can throw.

And a baseball is perfectly designed to throw. Pick one up, and anybody will immediately devine that purpose to the object. Light enough to throw for distance, hard enough to make a satisfactory impact.

Throwing, I think, is ingrained in us from homo sapien's earliest days as a hunter.

Pitching major league ball tests the limitations of the arm as a hurler of projectiles, without a doubt. But it's not unnatural. It's part of who we are as humans.