Bartolo Colon controls the secret of baseball

On Thursday, Bartolo Colon ran. He ran and ran, chasing down his victim with great vigor and single-minded focus. Lo, he was successful.

This was Internet news because it was Bartolo Colon running. Video of it was shared and re-shared and talked about and praised. Colon is an event, and we’re grateful for him. You might remember this sentiment from last week, when he singled in a run.

It’s funny because he’s fluffy. Even if you don’t remember this guy ...

... and enjoy/mock the contrast between then and now, you can enjoy the current state of Colon. He is of a body type that we are not used to from our professional athletes! Isn’t that incredible? Oh, oh, wait, I’ve got one. Check this out, ha ha ha, you’ll love this. If you use ESPN’s Cy Young predictor toy, Colon is currently the early early early leader for the NL Cy Young.

Wait. That has nothing to do with him being a sideshow attraction in the carnival of baseball. That doesn’t appeal to the 10-year-old-bully side of our subconscious. That’s not why Bartolo Colon is getting attention. He’s pitching well, too? Well, that’s almost an afterthought.

It shouldn’t be. If Colon looked like D’Angelo on the cover of Voodoo -- and at this point, I must ask that you do not picture the current Colon on that cover, please -- he would still be a freak. He’s a 41-year-old pitcher who throws almost nothing but 90-mph fastballs. That shouldn’t work. That absolutely should not work. You hear it all the time, that (prospect) needs to learn a third pitch if he wants to be a starting pitcher. Forget the second pitch, prospects need a third pitch and ideally a fourth.

Colon has one. Technically, he has two different variations of one (a two-seamer and a four-seamer), but they both fall under the general fastball category. Now you can add in the part that everyone is focusing on this days, the raw amount of human being, you get this sentence:

Bartolo Colon is a large, out-of-shape, 41-year-old pitcher who throws only fastballs.

Try it out for other sports. Ranger Finbrick is a large, out-of-shape, 41-year-old quarterback who can throw passes accurately, as long as they’re within 10 yards. Gansel Morn is a large, out-of-shape, 41-year-old center who can drop a mean hook from eight feet away and do literally nothing else. It shouldn’t work, not in any sport that ostensibly requires a variety of skills. Yet here Colon is, not just treading water, but thriving.

This helmet-falling-off thing is a big misdirection. Colon is a warlock, and you’re sitting there talking about his appearance. The emperor has one pitch, everyone. THE EMPEROR HAS ONE PITCH.

We shouldn’t be laughing at Colon, we should be studying him. He’s pulling the curtain back on a primitive truth of baseball, that command is absolutely the most important part of throwing a baseball. It seems like a truism, something we all know, except we’re all still smitten with velocity and secondary pitches. How is Matt Harvey’s fastball looking now that he’s back? Man, look at Clayton Kershaw 93 those hitters on the hands when they’re thinking about his curveball and slider, that’s just not fair. This is how we still discuss pitching. When June comes around, it’s how we’ll talk about the teenagers and college kids who represent the hopes and dreams of all 30 franchises.

Instead, Colon is succeeding at doing one thing exceptionally well, and it’s one of the least exciting things a scout can look for. An average fastball with movement, put in just the right spot, almost every time.

When he walked back to the dugout after that last strikeout, he had a sublime Colon troll face:

None of those hitters needed to look for a curve or a change. They weren’t in danger of getting caught by surprise with a screwball or slider. They had to look for a straight fastball or a fastball with movement, with a range of three to four mph between them.

I mean, the fastball does have some pretty gnarly movement ...

Still, there should be an Institute of Bartolo Colon Studies, in which the goal would be for philosophers, scientists and front office personnel to create more Colons. Do you know how many teams have a dozen young pitchers with 91-mph moving fastballs? There are 30 of them. That means there’s a chance for them, technically. Do you know how many of those young pitchers will eventually make it to the majors and succeed if they have only 91-mph moving fastballs? Absolutely none of them.

Why? What’s the difference? Maybe Colon gets to do this because he’s been grandfathered in. Maybe the orthodoxy of need-three-pitches is outdated, and here is oversized proof. Maybe a young pitcher could succeed as a starter with nothing but two-seamers and four-seamers. Or maybe there are levels of artistry that we can’t even see, that are impossible to explain. Trade secrets in Colon’s command and deception that he won’t reveal until he’s a coach.

If there’s never another Colon, though, we can just be thankful that we have this one. Take away the obvious -- that it’s a delightful jape to have this chap do regular baseball things -- and you still have an amazing baseball player who shouldn’t work, but does. It was just four years ago that Colon was out of baseball. From 2006 through 2010, he averaged fewer than 50 innings a season. Now he looks like a player who can pitch until he’s 50.

Man, I hope so.