Mystery Theme #8 by PolinskyL

In baseball, it's a colloquialism for a pitch, as well as for a tool (which can be fast or slow) that may be at the manager's disposal when the pitch isn't working too well. What is it?

SOCRATES is a medical mnemonic used in the evaluation of what?

What poet was the 20th century's last Nobel Prize in Literature recipient whose work was primarily in English?

In the US, the work of the answer to Q3 was published by what publishing house, now part of Macmillan? One of its founders was a descendant of the Guggenheim family.

Who was the last male hockey goaltender to lead the host nation to a Winter Olympic gold medal? (For the purposes of this question, take 'lead' to mean playing in the final.)

The National Film Board of Canada has received at least one of each of the three Academy Awards (still being) given to what type of films? Please provide the slightly dismissive-sounding one-word answer.

Edwards Theaters and United Artists Theaters are both owned by what large movie theater company?

Although several inquisitors were appointed in different cities in Spain, it was not until 1483 that a single Grand Inquisitor, or Inquisitor General, was appointed. What was his name?

The late 1990s were a time when politicians in the US were concerned about Chinese espionage (you may recall the case of physicist Wen Ho Lee). A committee of nine congressmen (the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, if you must know) wrote a report on the matter. The ranking Democrat was Norm Dicks. Who was the only slightly less phallically surnamed Republican head of the committee? He would later go on to chair the SEC.

"The mail never stops! It just keeps coming and coming and coming, there's never a let-up! It's relentless! Every day it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out! But the more you get it out the more it keeps coming in! And then the bar code reader breaks..." What sitcom character gave this explanation for "going postal"?

Bill Clinton's resume includes time in Hot Springs, AR, and a degree from Yale Law School. What less successful US politician - who was thrice elected to the Senate from Tennessee but failed both in his two attempts to capture the Democratic Presidential nomination and in his one campaign as the party's VP nominee - also spent a year in Hot Springs and also graduated from Yale Law? FIRST (which was actually his middle) AND LAST NAME needed.

By now, you've surely got the mystery-theme thing down cold, but if not - what is the common theme across the previous 11 answers?