Free Republic

A town baseball field in Farmington, Connecticut may seem about as far away from the major leagues as you can get. But it's been witness to baseball history recently, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason. The key to throwing a gyroball, says sportswriter Will Carroll, is a football-like spiral spin that's easy to learn but hard to master. Minor league pitcher Steve Palazzolo is learning to throw what some claim is the first new pitch in a generation. It's called the "gyroball." True believers claim it's almost un-hittable. "We know that a curveball curves and a slider slides and a...

CESANA, Italy - Zach Lund, the top slider on the U.S. skeleton team, was banned from the Turin Olympics on Friday for taking a common hair-restoration pill that can be used to mask steroids. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Lund should serve a one-year suspension, retroactive to Nov. 10 and enforced immediately. Lund told CAS that he was misled by the Web site for the governing body of his sport, which listed finasteride both as a "prohibited substance" and a "specified substance." Lund told CAS he failed to check the prohibited list in 2005. The CAS panel...