The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1911-04-25
CURVED PITCHING
STARTED In VERMONT
Story Of Its Origin In a Vermont Col
lege Told in an Interesting
Manner.

That the curved ball in baseball was
discovered. or at least re. discovered, in
Vermont is shown by the following clip
ping which ia furnished The Times by
Charles A. Webb, its special Washing
ton correspondent;
"The old baseball controversy over
the time of the appearance of curved
pitching and the credit for its invention
has been revived by the statement of
John Bigelow that he pitched curved
ball away back in the Cos. In his Re
trospections of an Active Life Mr., Bige-
low SAYS;
~ came to be elected pitcher at base
ball because | had acquired a knack of
throwing the ball 80 that II would fall
down by the side Of the bat, instead OF
coming straight at It, and the batter
would pretty invariably miss il, and If
caught by the catcher would "put him
out" as the game was then played
eve don't know anything about this
curved ball pitched 50 long ago by Mr..
Bigelow except that from his descrip
tion it was apparently deadly drop
and that he had it under perfect con-
ing that curved pitching first became
factor in the sport of baseball about
the centennial year
Nor have we any exact knowledge
concerning the origin of curved pitch
ing. Our impression has always been
that it was first put into use in the
East in the fall of 1875. Anyway, If
the art was known in the days of Mr..
Bigelowis youth, it was rediscovered in
1875 or 1876 And here are the recol-
lections of man born and brought up
in Chicago. who began his baseball ca
reer with one old cat in a vacant lot:
"At the age of IL this young man
entered college in Vermont in the fall
of 1876. He played fair game OF ball
for an amateur. And he had never
heard of such thing as curved pitch
ing.
Upon his arrival at college this young
Chicagoan naturally hunted up the base
ball enthusiasts and found them in a
state of wild excitement. The pitcher
Of the college team had learned during
the summer to pitch a curved ball
"The Chicagoan was from Missouri on
that proposition He could pitch lit
tie himself-and he had to be shown
He was shown. Pitcher, batter and
catcher lined up on the campus diamond
The plate was carefully busted off. The
youth from Chicago got behind the plate
PLAY ball' he remarked.
The pitcher. a Vermont boy, grinned
screwed his fingers around the ball and
without any preliminary contortions
slammed it toward the plate. In those
DAYS. be it remembered. all pitching was
must be below the hip in delivering the
ball In this pitchers delivery there
was nothing unusual to be noted except
decided twist of the wrist as the ball
left his hand.
"The first impression of the Chicagoan
was that the bali would not come any.
where near the plate--that il would
even pass behind the batter But the
ball described so wide a curve that il
finally passed outside the plate, and
even beyond the end of the bat in the
batter's hands.
at was simply and solely wide out.
curve. II was gradual and even, with
no sudden break in il. And the pitch
er had no other curve.
"a few days later occurred an interest.
ing and amusing scene which was du-
/ plicsted about the same time on many
college campus. The news OF the
curved ball got TO the professor of math-
ematics-who was skeptieal, to say the
/ least. So the dignifed and skeptcal
I professor was escorted to the diamond
and tall stakes were set up and the
| pitcher proceeded to demonstrate TO the
I satisfaction of the man of mathematics.
'Tn the spring of 1877. the Chicago
youth returned for the summer vacation
with a very fair, wide. slow ouNurve
70 show as the result Of his close at
/ tention 20 his text books. Did that
same wide slow outcurve create a SEN
satiou on the vacant lot ball grounds
Of the south side! IL did II did.
Z Everybody had to be shown. And
everybody was One champion Of the
prairies, who said there could be no such