This doesn’t exist on Tumblr, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be passed around like candy.
Alexis Pereira, ladies and gents:
Improv baseball analogies:
Because we say improv team and coach, I really am starting to think about improvisers as pitchers and their moves as pitches. The idea is you want to strike out the audience, and when the audience is ahead of you they get a hit, and when they don’t like what you’re throwing they’ll just draw a walk. A strike is typically a game move.
Radar Gun - This is how fast a pitcher throws and how hard a pitcher commits. Obviously you want to vary the levels slightly, but always keeping it around superhuman speeds.
Fastball - Yes’and. This is every pitcher’s best friend. Unfortunately, it is also the pitch most pitchers are afraid of throwing. Just like an improviser, it’s often thought of as too boring to get the job done. However, it is what every good pitcher and improviser bases his or her entire repertoire on. You just gotta keep throwing that fastball.
Fastball with Good Movement - If you can earnestly Yes’and and find something unusual, you really have something special. There’s no purposeful attempt to insert anything unusual, and because of that it’s deadly.
Breaking Ball - Purposely inserting something unusual into a scene. Some people can throw a curveball with good speed and a surprising snap. However, this is usually a weak pitch that batters can see a mile away. This is a great pitch to mix in every now and then, but two in a row, or even two to the same batter, spells trouble for a pitcher and shows a lack of confidence in his or her fastball.
Changeup - Resting the game. This is a fastball’s best friend, a fake fastball thrown so slow it confuses the hitter. When you hit the game with a fastball, the audience is on its toes and almost expecting you to try to get it with another fastball. As fast as you throw that next fastball, the audience might be so geared up that it gets ahead of you. Throwing a changeup to let the audience fall forward, and then throwing a fastball by them as they try to sit back, is how a lot of great pitchers handle batters.
Junkballer - Improv wild card. In baseball you have some pitchers who never throw fastballs and only throw breaking balls. They are called junk ballers. You will rarely find them throwing a whole game, but they are a nice change of pace every now and then.
Hit batsman - Big joke that nobody liked and ruined the scene.
Passed ball - A move that confused everybody and may ruin the scene.
Strikeout - A nice game move to button the end of the scene.
Swinging Strikeout and the Ball Bounces on the Ground and The Batter Falls Because They Were So Surprised and Overpowered - Self-explanatory
