I Can’t Stop Laughing at This Japanese Pitcher’s Hilarious Eephus Pitch

The thought behind an Eephus pitch is to catch the batter off guard. It’s also to steal a strike. Kaz Tadano of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters accomplished one of those goals with this effort. More importantly, he brought global laughter.

This is, without a doubt, the highest attempt I’ve ever seen. The batter, umpire and catcher all had to crane their necks up just to follow the path, allowing for optimum screen-grabbing.

The downside of such a lofty pitch is that it’s damn near impossible to get it to come down through the strike zone. As tremendous as Tadano’s lob was, it probably still came across the plate high.

The buzzkill of an umpire should have given him the benefit of the doubt, but that’s another story.

[H/T: It’s Always Sunny in Detroit]