The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-28

set the most glowing record ever estab- lished by a green tosser that of winning 26 games out of S2 pitched. His average
 in 1910 battered the 800 mark of winning percentage, a notch reached only by one other recruit. King" Cole of the Cubs the same year, and surpassed by veteran tossers such as A. G. Spalding and Wild Bill'' Donovan but four times in history
 Ford is no flash in the pan. King Cole may or may not be. So may ''Rube'' Marquard, the champion southpaw of pro- fessional baseball last year. Lots of tossers have loomed upon the horizon for one fitting season of superhuman en- deavor only to sink back into oblivion Krause the portsider of the Athletics. flashed out like comet in baseball's ken in 1909 He has made little noise or trou- ble since. Cole went away back in 1911. Marquard must this year live up to his 1911 form to justify his claims to lasting fame. F ord had a great deal better sea- son in 1910, his first start, than he did last season but only in so far as winning percentage is concerned. In 1910 he estab- lshed one of the most fattering records of all time with a club that finished sec ond in the strife for Ben Johnsons pen nant He was with a sixth position ag- gregation-a very, very badly msmanaged sixth position aggregation-last season. Yet he came out of the fray with record of victories in two-thirds of the games in which he worked This, in spite of the fact that he had very little encourage ment from his packers.
 More than half the games he lost last season were kicked away from him. More than half were lost by one run. He was no sinecure. From the time he first re- ported to the Highlanders, Ford has had to work for every victory. The various managers realizing that he was the main dependence of the tossing corps have all ways handed him the toughest assign ments. It is Ford who invariably catches the star contemporaries of the opposition. He has been forced to fight his way to the top over such brilliant rivals as Walter Johnson, Ed Walsh, George Mullin, Joe Wood. vean Gregg and Chief Bender. But for an unfortu- nate accident last season his work, even with sixth position array, might have proved quite as brilliant as that of his debut He lost About half of his games while he was physically unfit for duty. Early in the season he "beaned" Cor han of the White Sox. For days it looked as if the Cdcagoan would not recover. Ford. who is a highly sensitive young man. was completely unstrung from the accident. In two weeks he lost 10 pounds. He was on the verge of physical collapse when the injured athlete finally recovered. Russell Ford is a pitcher bound to go down through history as one of the brightest stars of the game. His work ir the two years of service has justified claim to one of the highest inches of fame. He will go on to greater achieve ments in the future if no i'll luck befalls. For Russ is a pitcher blessed with an unusual amount of gray matter. He IS nobody's fool. He will last many year.
 He has not jumped to the top of his profession because of any unusual phy- sical qualifications. In fact, he is but of average size and strength. He weighs only 175 pounds in fighting trim That 1 Is perhaps a trihe under the average in | this age of giant tossers. Ford realizes | as much as anybody that his physical | body is not equipped in a manner to | proclaim him any iron man. of the na- | tional pastme. The fact that he insists upon four full days rest between games
 
 1 enough to insure the conservation of his good right arm to the longest pos | sibe tenure of efficiency.
 l Russell Ford is commonly classed among the American leagues great horde of
 '.spitball' pitchers. Yet he does not throw
 the ''spitbsll.' He will tell you so him 1 self He losses something that very
 closely resembles the salivary slant in gyraton and break but something also l as far removed from this difficult shoot as Matty's fadeaway differs from Mar | ouard's fast one. What his freak de- | livery is, Ford alone knows. He is tell ] Ing no one. It's virtue lies in the fact I of its mystery. Pitchers for two years
 have heen trying to solve the nature of 1 the delivery. Aside from the results he gets with it they have been able to learn absolutely nothing.
 For Russell Ford is the only pitcher in baseball who can throw what exactly resembles a 'sptball'' yet with such per feet control and manipulation that he
 oap make If break either to the right m