The Washington times., 1926-01-20

0P A0OOAs
The first cycle that remember
was the overland pitching. 1t was
believed that no man could pos.
aibfy make his mark unless he had
had perfect overland motion.
like that of Bill Donovan or
Christy Mathewson. But that idea
was knocked high sky by the
underhand pitching of men like
Carl Mays.
The next cycle was when the
whole game went crazy over the
idea of the hit and run; the per-
lection of hitting behind the run
jner and so on. Then came cycle
OF base stealing.
To me the most interesting be-
cause Of it's temporary nature
was the great cycle OF the
famous trick balls. Every pitcher
IN the land was sitting up at
nights thinking mp ways of doing
tricky things to the ball. This
came right on the heels Of the
hulIabaIIOO over the spitbail.
Many Of those pitchers. too, were
really clever inventors.
They got away with the most
astonishing tricks, some of which
have not been solved or exposed
to this day. A rule was adopted
20 do away with all the freak
pitching but it still cropss out in
spots. Every once jim while we
catch a fellow pulling some freak
Astunts Much of it has never been
exposed.
For instance, nobody knows to
this day-not even hiss own man
ager and the coaches what it was
that Eddie Cicotte did to-a ball to
make it sail in that peculiar man
ner so completely puzzling to bat
tiers.
The most prominent Of the trick
balls were the emery ball. the
safIer, the knuckle ball and the
raised seam ball; there were others
though.
The cycle OF the freak pitching
was at its height soon after ]
came in-just when / was begin
ming to get up. among the leaders
as a batter.
In New York one day l was sur
prised to learn that not one of the
players nor the owners of the.
present American League team, the
Tanks, was familiar with sleigf1t Of
hand work of Russell Ford, former
New York pitcher. that upset the
whole league for two seasons.
Ford, a most intelligent fellow.
had an old delivery that was almost
Hnhittable. He had no overhar1
swing that was noticeably good and
his form was not up to that of very
great pitchers. Still, he would
1E - An%
would suddenly dart away. 1t was
almost impossible to get hold Of it.
We tried every way We knew of
finding his secret, but to no avail.
We knew that he did something TN
usual TO the ball, but we couldn't
get clue. We called it the emery
ball because we often found a side
Of 1t roughed up as If rub0ed with
emery paper. But one day when
his clothes were searched 1t was
found that Ford carried no emery
paper.
It was years before anybody
learned how Ford managed to ap-
ply this emery and how ne made
the original discovery.
Russell Ford was pitching at At
lanta one day when a wild pitch
head and struck a concrete post.
This rOughed up one side of the
ball. On the next pitch Sweeney :.
noticed that the ball took q
peculiar shoot and almost gOt
away from him.
What is that you are throwing
he asked Ford. 1T jumped a half
foot
Ford himself didn't know exacdy.
but he began studying this odd
phenomenon.
After many experiments he
reached the conclusion that the
roughed side Of the ball caught
the wind and the friction gave the
hall a lopsided motion. causing it
to veer off from a straight course
at odd angles. Sweeney was pre-
pared for it that time. Ford at
that time used a piece of emery
paper TO scrape the ball. the paper
being concealed in his pocket.
News OF this got around and the
New York club bought Ford. When
he was engaged, though, it was
learned that Sweeney I alone knew
the secret and neither he nor Ford
would tell anybody else So, to be
sure the New York had also pur.
chased Sweeney in order to keep
fhe combination. j am told that is
how Sweeney got in the big league.
Ford and Sweeney were lust
rs successful with their secret In
the big league as in the miners. It
was two years before we learned
the trick.
Russell Ford always wore a ring
while pitching and he and Sweeney
conceived the idea OF having this
ring made of emery. As darkly
mounted ring. 1t did not attract
unusual attention and nobody sus-
nected its real purpose.
As he started to pitch, Ford
would bring the emery to bear on
the hall and work 1t around until
he had roughed up spot about