BASEBALL REPORT : DAILY UPDATE : DODGERS
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Roger Craig, the Giants’ manager, began this series hoping that he would not have to see Mike Hartley pitch for the Dodgers.
It’s not just because Hartley started the season with eight strikeouts in five scoreless innings, but because it was Craig who taught Hartley how to throw the split-finger fastball. It is Hartley’s best pitch.
“Funny how that works out,” said Hartley, who met Craig in the winter of 1986 when Hartley was working out at Grossmont College in El Cajon.
Craig had summoned a group of young Giant pitchers to winter workouts at the college, where Hartley had been throwing regularly. After the Giants’ pitchers left, Hartley was introduced to Craig, who taught him the pitch.
“After that I started using it all the time, and it became my pitch,” said Hartley, who was drafted by the Dodgers from the St. Louis organization the next season.
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