Shaq shows why he played basketball with awful pitch on TBS postgame

Shaquille O’Neal has everything a coach could want from a power pitcher. He’s strong, tall and exceptionally powerful. After Tuesday night, however, we think he might need to work on his mechanics.

Shaq showed why he decided to stick to basketball when he was growing up. The 7-foot-1 former center visited the baseball crew over on the TBS set for the postgame show. Once there, he tried to show Pedro Martinez his windup. It did not go well.

If we may play amateur pitching scout here … we’re not upset at first. But once he picks his left leg off the ground, everything goes to hell. He gets no lift with his leg, his throwing motion needs a lot of work and there’s no strong follow-through with his legs. He’s all arm and it shows … and his accuracy needs some work.

But we give him credit for going all-out. He may have been joking, but he really tried to deliver a strong pitch. As far as intangibles go, we would say he’s a competitor. Someone who’s really going to give it his all out there.

Despite that, our scouting recommendation for Shaq as a major-league pitcher reads as follows:

“Good pitcher’s build. Maybe even too good, as he would tower over former Kansas City Royals pitcher Chris Young. Has Rick Ankiel control on the mound, but tries hard. He’d be fun to watch, but there’s no way you can draft him. Could make a decent NBA prospect, though.”

We’re going to guess Pedro, Jimmy Rollins and Gary Sheffield would agree with that assessment.

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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik