Clipping:Suspected crooked play
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| Date | Sunday, October 21, 1877 |
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| Text | [from a season summary] There seems to have been the usual amount of “crooked” play, and its influence has been bad. The strangest thing of all is that the very players who have been most “suspected” of this grave misdemeanor have been readily taken for nines next year. The lessons of the season in this particular have been utterly disregarded in very many instances, and it remains for dear experience to impress yet more fully upon club managements the established fact that honest and moral players make the best nines and the winning ones in the long run. Boston Herald October 21, 1877 how players spend the off-season Many people wonder what professional ball players do in the winter. The majority follow the occupation that Cape Cod fishermen used to follow, namely, loafing. Some take to this business sort o’ naturally, and others are compelled, through inability to secure employment, to lie idle from November to April. It is this necessity, real or imagined, which player look upon as a justification of their demand for seemingly high salaries. The summer’s earnings have to support them through the winter, or, if they have failed to save anything, they live by their wits or by what they can borrow in anticipation of the next year’s income. A few players are paid salaries through the year, but this is rather the exception than the rule. Boston Herald October 21, 1877 a curve ball exhibition [Boston vs. Cincinnati 10/20/1877] The test was made during the third inning, when rain temporarily interfered with the game. Cincinnati Enquirer October 21, 1877 [Boston vs. Cincinnati 10/20/1877] Infinitely more interesting than the game was the experiment to demonstrate the possibility of pitching a ball so that it would describe a lateral curve in its course through the air. Disciples of Isaac Newton have declared with dogmatic certainty that the thing is impossible; that the force employed by the pitcher sent the ball in a straight line, modified only by the attraction of gravitation and the resistance of the air, which could only curve the ball downward as its projectile force was decreased. Base ball scientists were quite as certain that the expert pitcher knew how to give his ball a peculiar twist which sent it off in a curved line to the utter bewilderment of the batter. Recently the discussion has waxed warm, and on Saturday, after the second inning had been played, the experiment was tried. The chalk line, running parallel with the line from the home plate to first base, was chosen as the base of operations. It is a line running nearly north and south. The pitcher was placed at the south end of the line. At a point half way to first base a barrier was placed on the west side of the line, with the end resting on the line. This was to compel the pitcher, who stood on the west side of the line, to send the ball across to the east side. Another barrier was placed on the east side of the line opposite first base. This was to stop the ball unless it described a curved line that would carry it back to the west side of the chalk line. Down where the pitcher stood, a board was set on one end of the line and held in position to make sure that the pitcher did not reach over and start his ball at the wrong side. Bond, the Boston pitcher, then took his place at the west side of the line, and tried the experiment. His first effort showed that the board was a necessity to keep him in the right place; his ball struck its edges. He tried again and again, the ball being difficult to manage on account of its being wet. At least he sent a ball which started fairly on the west side of the line, curved over to the east side to pass the first barrier, and back again to the west side to avoid the other barrier, and dropped on the ground two feet from the line. It was a plain case of “curved” ball. Then Mitchell was called up, and, being a left handed pitcher, he took his position on the east side of the chalk line. The barriers were changed accordingly, and he made the effort. His first ball also struck the board beside him, but it was not long until he sent a “meanderer” that crossed the chalk line to the west side and recrossed to the east side, and was caught fully one foot east of the further barrier. The ball had been curved in opposite directions by these two pitchers, thus disposing of the theory that the wind helped divert the ball from its course. If there was any wind at all it was from the north. The tests were regarded as entirely satisfactory, and created great interest. It is proposed to repeat it in the game this afternoon. The following diagrams show how the thing was done: [see diagrams in original] Cincinnati Daily Gazette October 22, 1877 see also Cincinnati Commercial 10/21/1877 [Boston vs. Cincinnati 10/22/1877] After the third inning another test was made of the ability of Bond and Mitchell to throw a ball so that it will describe a lateral curve in its course. The same plan was pursued as on Saturday last, and was even more successful than then. Bond threw half a dozen balls before he was twice successful, but Mitchell threw only three. Cincinnati Daily Gazette October 23, 1877 Mitchell and Bond again proved the curved ball reality at the Park yesterday before the spectators and to every body's satisfaction. Mitchell got two balls around out of three pitched, and decidedly beat Bond on the size of the curve,, although Bond put two out of five around the stakes. One of the two barely went past the last post, but the second one passed it with half a foot to spare. Cincinnati Enquirer October 23, 1877 Curved pitching has been demonstrated, and it now remains for the scientists to explain it. At Cincinnati, recently, Bond, the pitcher of the Boston base ball club, caused a ball to curve around a board set up midway between the point of delivery and that where the ball was caught, and to show that the curve was not caused by the wind Mitchell, the left-handed pitcher, at once took the same position, and made the ball curve round the same board in the opposite direction. The tests were very thorough, the motions of the pitchers being restrained by a board so that no deception could be practiced. Lowell Daily Citizen and News October 25, 1877 [Boston vs. Cincinnati 10/27/1877] Another test of the curved ball was made by the two pitchers, Bond and Mitchell, to the entire satisfaction of the multitude. Cincinnati Enquirer October 28, 1877 |
| Source | Boston Herald |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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