Arizona republican., 1912-06-30
SOME SECRETS
 BY MARQUARD.
Giant Hero of 16 Straight Gives Inside Information of the Profesh, Speed and Control Are Most Neces- sary
(BY Rube Marquard.l


 Pitching is like making love-eVcry- body does it differently. But also like making love, there are certain general rules of success that must be followed.
 Every spring you hear all sorts of stories about new and weird pitching tricks that are going to revOlutionize the game. Some of these new balls are really good and some of them are not. The spitball, which 1 don't use at all, is one of the comparatively new freaks of pitching that has al ready done remarkable work and at one time threatened to give rise to special legislation in the American league.
 Matty has a fadeaWay ball that is a wonder. Other pitchers can throw this ball. but none of them has the remarkable control of it that Matty has He is really the only pitcher that can use it successfully. And this brings me down to what I was getting at Freak balls are all right for a change. and pitcher must have some curves and breaks to make good but the foundation of all 1 good pitching lies in two things control and change of pace. A pitcher that hasn't got these two-especially the first-is no good. no matter how many slants and queer jumps he can give a baseball.
 Control Hardest to Learn.
 That was the hardest thing I had to learn-cOntrOl. You have to put the ball over the plate for big league batters. They don't strike at bad ones And if you put them square over the plate they hit 'em mile. This means that you have to work the sides of the plate, working the cor ners," the pitchers call it, and that makes control.
 Change of pace is necessary, be- cause if you pitch every ball at the same rate of speed the opposing bat ters soon learn to time it and hit it. You have to mix up fast ones and slow ones, and the same motion in throwing must be used, or they will be able to tell which is the fast and which the slow one before it leave your hand.
 1 have a slow ball I call the "tur- key trotter" l hold the ball wedged between my middle fingers and sup ported by the thumb. Naturally you can't hold the ball firmly, and the final snap of the wrist that gives the speed does not take effect. Going through the air it wobbles from side to side. and the batter cannot gauge it's speed until it is upon him. The secret of all slow balls is that the ball is not securely gripped close into the hand.
 Slow Ball Effective
 The slow ball. thrown with the same motion, is very effective following a fast curve or d fast ball The fast ball, usually thrown high. has sharp break close in to the batter, and this, combined with the terrific speed, makes it especially hard to hit Per feet mastery of these two balls makes a dangerous pitcher without anything else, and when you have a good curve along with them you have all of it. The fast one is held with the two fingers and the thumb-tightly. and thrown straight out with all the strength of the arm.
 The drop curve that depend on for most of my curve work is thrown by holding the ball exactly as it is held for the fast one. In fact, pitcher should, to the eye of the bat ter hold the ball as nearly the same each time as possible. But the pc culiar break of the drop is given by releasing the ball over the top of the fingers with an under turn of the hand. It is very hard to hit