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MARYVILLE — Justin Mucciarelli said he tried to learn softball pitching from watching established players Andy Purcell and Scott Nastally. The 31-year-old pitcher for Jean Shoppe/Tanel/Worth appears to have watched Charlie Chaplin or some of the other slapstick comedic actors of old as well with all his antics. Although all pitchers at this weekend’s Smoky Mountain Classic slow-pitch tournament do pump fakes and other basic moves to try to throw the batters off, Mucciarelli has taken it to a new level.

During Jean Shoppe’s 29-12 win over Spitz Seeds/Mizuno in six innings at Sandy Springs Park on Friday night, he burned a few extra calories doing a cartwheel before pitching the ball, fake pumping numerous times, covering his head with his glove, smelling his glove before pitching, bouncing the ball off his feet, and completely turning around before throwing the ball. He also is known to do somersaults. But the wacky style apparently has some substance to it.

“Everybody does it about the same but he is better at it,” said David Bible of Valley Excavating/3N2, who was watching Mucciarelli after his game was over. “He is one of the best pitchers in the nation. His team doesn’t give up a lot of runs.

” Mucciarelli jokingly admitted that some people have wondered if he needed his head examined. But said that there is a method to the seeming madness. “It is good for the crowd and it gets the batter so upset that he starts watching you and it takes away from him,” he said.

“They start looking at the pitching antics instead of concentrating on the ball.” Besides getting attention for his unusual pitching style, Mucciarelli also stands out for his diminutive and slender size among his muscular, home-run-hitting teammates. Reared in Trenton, N.

J., he played high school soccer and was a shortstop and pitcher in baseball. Despite the obvious difference between baseball and slow-pitch softball pitching, he thinks the strategies are very similar.

“You try to pitch to your defense and pay attention to the batter,” he said. Mucciarelli began pitching at the top level in 2005, after being discovered by a New Yorker named Lou Mongelli, whom he credits with getting him noticed nationally. Although Jean Shoppe is based in the West Tennessee town of McKenzie, Mucciarelli still lives in Trenton.

In fact, he said that he does not even know where McKenzie is. But he apparently knows where home plate is. Among the other winners Friday night was top-ranked Resmondo Softball of Florida, which defeated Vacances Transat H, 39-4.

The three Knoxville area teams all lost opening-round games. Play resumes this morning, with the finals scheduled for Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

at Sandy Springs Park.