1870.11
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Chicago Switches to the Dead Ball, Starts Winning Again
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | Equipment, The BallEquipment, The Ball |
| Location | ILIL |
| City/State/Country: | Chicago, IL, United States |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | BaseballBaseball |
| Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
| Age of Players | AdultAdult |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| Text | "Circumstances prevented any improvement in the organization of the [White Sox] nine until some weeks after their return from their disastrous [New York] tour; finally, however, the nine was re-organized . . . the muffin players' rubber ball was re-placed by a dead ball, and from the[n] . . .the Chicago club has been marked by a series of uninterrupted victories, the crowning triumph being the defeat of the strongest nine in the United States in two successive contests." |
| Sources | New York Clipper October 29, 1870 |
| Warning | |
| Comment | Richard Hershberger, 150 years ago in baseball, FB posting 10/29/2020:
Chadwick on the improvement of the Chicago Club. They wisely took his advice and switched from a lively to a dead ball. Success inevitably followed.
Much as I enjoy tweaking Chad for this sort of thing, in fairness it was pretty standard in this era. A newspaper would publish helpful advice to the local club. If the club did something that could plausibly be taken as consistent with the helpful advice, the paper would claim credit for the suggestion. Say what you will about modern sports talk radio, even those guys don't usually claim that the GM turns to them for trade ideas.
Does the claim about the deal ball make a lick of sense? It is classic Chad, but there is a kernel of truth. Good and poor fielding teams generally favored a dead or lively ball respectively, on the grounds that a dead ball gave the infielders a chance to show their stuff while a lively ball was more likely to get to the outfield. The Red Stockings revolution was mostly about improved fielding, so they favored a dead ball. As clubs' fielding caught up, they followed suit. The eventual consensus was a relatively dead ball, with later discussions being how live or not, within the range of a relatively dead ball. So as the White Stockings got their act together, it is entirely plausible that they moved to a dead ball. In other words, they didn't get getter because they switched to a dead ball; they switched to a dead ball because they got better. And certainly not because Chadwick convinced them.
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| Query | Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
| External Number | |
| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Submission Note | FB Posting, 10/29/2020 |
| Has Supplemental Text |
1870.11 Chicago Switches to the Dead Ball, Starts Winning Again"
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