CNN.com Baseball's Most intimidating pitchers of all-time

Before you decide to drop Maglie, you do know why he was nicknamed ``The Barber,'' don't you?

It's because he'd give batters a ``close shave'' with a fastball under the chin.

He was one of the most intimidating pitchers ever.

 

Yeah, this is no list without the inclusion of The Barber. He was the ultimate knockdown artist.

 

Seems to me this list is as much about head-hunting as it is about "most intimidating".

Rivera, Morris and Eckersley should all be in the Hall of Fame. None of them made you physically afraid to dig in to the batter's box. "We throw two at yours for every one you throw at us"-type stuff. If that's the criteria, then this list is pretty strong.

That said, Gibson's the no-brainer No. 1. Drysdale is a no-brainer No. 2.

Wynn's arguable at No. 3, although I can't think of anything scarier than a 6-10 sidewinding left-hander with a lion's mane of hair throwing Mr. Happys at me all night long, holy mother of god.

I would've moved Koufax up, Goose up and Pedro way up.

Carl Mays is the worst exclusion. That man would be in the Hall of Fame if only he hadn't, you know, killed a guy.

 

No.
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No.
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Agreed. Smith wouldn't have been a horrible choice, but I wouldn't bump anybody on the list for him.

And Wagner? Great as he has been and as hard as he throws, the guy just is not an intimidating presence on the mound.

 

I disagree. Walter Johnson was afraid to throw inside to hitters for fear of hurting someone, yet he is the one guy that Ty Cobb would not dig in against. He was intimidating by virtue of his great fastball alone and the potential damage it could do.

 

It's a good list. To my mind, intimidating means scary and no one was scarier on the mound than Mr. Gibson. Hey, he was even scary off the mound. I must tell you that I met Gibson back in 1981, when Joe Torre brought him in as a Mets coach. I thought I'd have a pretty good "in" with him since his good friend, Torre, introduced us. But believe me, I stuck my hand out to shake his and it sat there for a good 30 seconds before he shook it. That was intimidating to me.

He has since become a friend but I'll never forget that first meeting and how intimidated I felt.

 

Exactly. He'd probably scare the shit out of players now, at 60-something.

And was Koufax that intimidating. I knew he had a lot of strikeouts, but I never thought of him as intimidatng like Gibson, Drysdale or Gossage.

 

Did you say enough no's? Personally, I think Wags and Gagne are more intimidating than Eck and Rivera. Nothing was daunting about Rivera. He is a man of three pitches who is fading near the end of his career. Players found the way to beat Rivera and just waited on the cutter. Against Wags, you have a 100 MPH fastball to worry about. Granted, Craig Biggio put one out on him, but he grooved that pitch down the middle. Gagne is also just plain filthy. When you are a batter and the pitcher you are facing has notched 60+ straight saves, there is a level of intimidation. Eck and Rivera just don't do it.

 

I realize you were all of 12 when Rivera was at his best, and a toddler when Eckersley was dominating, but how can you possibly believe that standing in against Rivera during the postseason and KNOWING you were going to fail wasn't intimidating?

 

Are you fucking kidding?

Wagner's 100 mph fastball is hard to fucking hit, sure, but Rivera's fucking cutter is one of the top 10 fucking unhittable pitches in baseball fucking history.

Wagner's an All-Star. Rivera's a Hall of Famer.