Curves

Forty years ago when baseball's shaky monarchy still ruled sports sections in cities and hamlets alike, fillers periodically popped up like this:

Even then, how far a curve moved was trivial. All one kid knew was he couldn't hit one if somebody ran it across the plate. Not with a freaking paddle, and not even if they told him what was coming. The only thought which kept him sane was that far better players than he wired their families in spring training, "Heading home soon. They're beginning to curve them." 

Fifties spare outfielder Pete Whisenant wasn't known for his oration. Yet Jim Brosnan's book, 'The Long Season', makes Whiz majority spokesman on mister curve: "Bross, take away sliders and curve balls and I'd be the best hitter in this ol' league."  

Darryl Strawberry would be inclined to agree. Soon after the Mets signed him and touted his talent with every label from 'can't miss' to 'Moses', a young man watched him when Lynchburg visited Kinston. Although looking forward to Straw bashing at least two taters, what he saw was a guy with a feminine bat which acted as if a curve were some bug too icky to touch. Kinston's starter punched him out twice with the breaker, and in the seventh when they relieved him with some dude who was all motion and no speed (many readers on mornings after nights before Ralph a ball harder than he threw it), the Strawman almost k'ed again before God took pity and gave him a walk.  

The two major claimants to inventing Straw's nemesis Aunt Susie were Candy Cummings and Fred Goldsmith. Odds are good that each arrived at his discovery independently, but since the 5 foot 4 inch, 120 pound Candy's clippings were older than Fred's he got the Tom Edison nod. Judging from newspaper accounts of the number of pop-ups Candy was supposed to have thrown, it probably wasn't much more than a wrinkle. Still, that pitch was the mother of the modern stampede - from Iron Man Joe McGinnity (who was said to throw nothing but underhand curves) to Dazzy Vance, Bob Feller, Carl Erskine, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver and beyond. Also every batter oath from !(%+ to the much more descriptive,"jump up my @$$, you gutless $@%(@*^." 

One Sally League player allergic to drops was Keith Schmidt. Keith hammered them in bp if that's all the pitcher threw, but in games with normal pitching patterns he broke out in a rash of strikeouts. At .246 with Columbia in '52, Schmidt could have saved hundreds of thousands in research grants and told Krupps of the world a curve's maximum movement beforehand - enough to look stupid missing it with a bat.  

Dan Grey Taylor Jr.