September 20, 1934: Baseball's Last Legal Spitball

Burleigh Grimes

September 20, 1934: The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers score both of their runs in the 1st inning, on a single by Lonny Frey, a double by Len Koenecke, and a single by Tony Cuccinello.

More interesting than how the Dodgers scored is off whom: The Pirates' pitcher for the 1st 7 innings was Brooklyn native, former Yankee ace, future Cincinnati Reds broadcaster, and Hall-of-Famer Waite Hoyt. (No person has been elected to the Hall as both a player and a broadcaster, but Hoyt should have been the 1st.)

The 8th inning was pitched by Burleigh Grimes. He got Cuccinello to fly to center field, Johnny Frederick to ground to short, and "Jersey Joe" Stripp to strike out. This would be the last inning pitched in the major leagues by Grimes, a 41-year-old native of western Wisconsin, who had a career record of 270-212. He led the National League in wins in 1921 and 1928, and in strikeouts in 1921.

He had previously pitched for the Dodgers, including on their 1920 National League Pennant winners; and had also pitched in the World Series for the 1931 St. Louis Cardinals (his only World Championship) and the 1932 Chicago Cubs, making him one of the few players to appear in back-to-back World Series with different teams. His 191 wins during the 1920s made him the winningest pitcher of the decade.

Not only was he elected to the Hall of Fame, but 36 of his teammates were, a record that still stands. This is partly because one of his teammates was Frankie Frisch, who long served on the Hall's Committee on Veterans, and was known for advocating for the election of teammates that might not really have deserved it. Some fans have cited the "Frisch Five," although that list varies, and some have included Grimes on that list. But 270-212 is a pretty good record.

He managed the Dodgers in the 1937 and '38 seasons, with no success. He succeeded Casey Stengel, and was succeeded by Leo Durocher. He managed the Class AAA Toronto Maple Leafs, for whom the hockey team was named in 1927, to the 1943 International League Pennant. Later, as a scout for the Baltimore Orioles, he discovered 2 great pitchers, Hall-of-Famer Jim Palmer and 3-time All-Star Dave McNally, who won 453 games in the major leagues between them. He died in 1985.

Is Grimes' last major league game, on September 20, 1934, really that big a deal? Just because he sent 3 players on a 71-81 team (albeit one managed by Stengel, in his 1st season as a major league manager) down in order? No, not for that reason. The reason his last game is noteworthy is that it was the last time a major league pitcher legally threw a pitch that fell under the definition of the term "spitball."

The term implies that a pitcher spit on the ball. That's not usually how it happened. Usually, the pitcher would lick his fingers, and then grip the ball, so the moistness would cause it to drop, like what would now be called a hard sinker.

Other "foreign substances" would be used on the ball, such as tobacco juice (chewing tobacco was all too common for players, especially pitchers, even into the 1980s, and many died from cancer as a result), Vaseline or some other petroleum product, or resin (not to be confused with rosin, from the rosin bag on the pitcher's mound). Some would damage the ball, including "scuffing" it with an emery board: The emery ball was common in the early 20th Century. Some would just rub the ball in the dirt on the mound. These actions became known as "doctoring" the ball.

But all this did more than just make the ball drop or curve sharply. Sometimes, it would make the ball rise, or come inside and hit the batter. Or, worse, both rise and hit the batter, sometimes in the head. And when there was dirt on the ball, turning a white ball brown, or some sort of gunk on the ball, making it an even darker color, that made it hard to see, especially later in the day when the Sun sank in the sky.

On August 16, 1920, Carl Mays of the New York Yankees, who not only had a "submarine" delivery that made his pitches rise, but had a spitball in his repertoire, hit Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians in the head, causing him to lose consciousness, and he died the next day. To the end of his own life, 51 years later, Mays told whoever that would listen that he hadn't purposely hit Chapman. But, even after this, he still pitched inside, and he still threw the spitball. If any manager ever told him not to, he didn't listen.

Ever since, there has been a perception that baseball outlawed such pitches in the wake of Carl Mays hitting Ray Chapman in the head with a pitch on August 16, 1920, causing Chapman to lose consciousness, and die the next day. Certainly, it would have been the right thing to do, had it not already been done. But the ban actually came before that.

If a ball was found to be doctored, the pitcher and the ball would both be thrown out of the game, and the pitcher then fined and suspended. And, while a pitcher blowing on his hand to warm it up during a game in cold weather was allowed (and still is), if an umpire thought he saw a pitcher stick his finger in his mouth, the umpire would automatically call a ball. For a 2nd offense, a warning. For a 3rd offense, ejection from the game.

Detroit Tigers center fielder Ty Cobb, the best player of the era, in one of his many "Old man"/"Get off my lawn" pronouncements, complained in his autobiography, "Freak pitches... were outlawed when the owners greedily sold out to home runs." Indeed, fewer sharp-breaking pitches and easier-to-see balls did give rise to what became known as the Lively Ball Era. Cobb kept on hitting until his retirement in 1928, though, never batting as low as .323 until his last season.

Cobb wasn't the only one who objected to the rule change: Many pitchers did, claiming the spitball was their best pitch, their "money pitch," their "bread and butter." So 17 pitchers were "grandfathered in," allowed to continue using it: Ray Fisher, Doc Ayers, Ray Caldwell (all retiring after the 1921 season), Phil Douglas (1922), Dana Fillingim, Dutch Leonard, Allen Russell (all retiring after 1925), Marv Goodwin (who died right after the 1925 season), Allen Sothoron (1926), Dick Rudolph (1927), Urban Shocker (died of heart trouble late in the 1928 season), Hall-of-Famer Stan Coveleski (1928), Bill Doak (1929), Clarence Mitchell (1932), Hall-of-Famer Urban "Red" Faber and Jack Quinn (1933), and, finally, Grimes.

(Goodwin is believed to be the 1st professional athlete in any sport on Earth to have been killed in a plane crash. Hockey player Hobey Baker, who was killed in a military test flight shortly after World War I ended, never turned pro.)

In March 1955, Commissioner Ford Frick advocated for the return of the spitball, telling a sportswriter, "If I had my way, I'd legalize the old spitter. It was a great pitch, and one of the easiest to throw. There was nothing dangerous about it." Despite his enthusiasm, the team owners didn't vote on it, and the pitch remained illegal.

After 1934, a few pitchers were accused of throwing doctored balls, including Claude Passeau of the 1940s Chicago Cubs, Hugh Casey of the 1940s Brooklyn Dodgers, Preacher Roe of the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, Early Wynn of the 1950s Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, Lew Burdette of the 1950s Milwaukee Braves, and Don Drysdale of the 1960s Brooklyn Dodgers.

One pitcher who ended up making the Hall of Fame admitted it: Gaylord Perry. In 1975, he published an autobiography, Me and the Spitter. He claimed to have used Vaseline, but wouldn't say where he hid it. He would also fake hitters out by wiping the sweat off his face, and off his brow, leading some people to think he kept the Vaseline on the brim of his cap. "Just the idea that batters think I'm throwing the spitter when I might not be helps me," he said. "Some of 'em worry more about whether I'm throwing it than about hitting it."

Only once was he ever caught on the field, in 1982, at the age of 44, having already joined the 300 Wins Club and the 3,000 Strikeouts Club, and having become the 1st pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both Leagues, and, at the time, the oldest pitcher to win the Cy Young.

Yankee Hall-of-Famer Whitey Ford admitted that, late in his career, he would damage the ball, using his wedding ring. (He was lefthanded.) Sometimes, he would ask his catcher, Elston Howard, to cut the ball on the edge of his shinguard.

In the 1986 National League Championship Series, when Houston Astros pitcher Mike Scott was beating the New York Mets -- a team for which he had once pitched, without success -- making their expected World Championship look less than inevitable for the 1st time all season, the Mets accused him of scuffing the ball. The umpires looked at the balls the Mets had collected, and didn't think them damaged enough to toss Scott. The Mets won the Pennant, anyway, clinching in Game 6, thus avoiding a Game 7 against Scott on the road.

Two more former Astro pitchers were caught doctoring the ball, at around the same time. During a game between the Yankees and the California Angels, future Hall-of-Famer Don Sutton was caught on instant replay with a small piece of sandpaper taped to his glove hand. And Joe Niekro, then with the Minnesota Twins, was told to empty his pockets in mid-game, and an emery board fell out. Like his Hall of Fame brother Phil, Joe had used a knuckleball to great success, winning 221 games. If he wanted a pitch that would break sharply, why didn't he just throw his regular knuckler?

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September 20, 1934 was a Thursday. On that day, Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone was born in Rome. We would know her as Sophia Loren, one of the greatest actresses, and one of the most beautiful women, who has ever lived.

These other baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-7 at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938 and Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Babe Ruth didn't play, but Lou Gehrig went 1-for-3 with 2 RBIs. Goose Goslin hit a home run, and Hank Greenberg went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at the Polo Grounds. Manager-1st baseman Bill Terry went 0-for-4. Mel Ott went 1-for-4. Carl Hubbell outpitched Paul Derringer.

* The St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Boston Braves at Braves Field in Boston, 4-1 and 1-0. In the nightcap, Bill Walker allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-7 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 6-1 at League Park in Cleveland.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-5 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Jimmie Foxx and Pinky Higgins hit home runs.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

July 20, 1969: Man On the Moon

July 20, 1969: At 4:17 PM, U.S. Eastern Time, the lunar module Eagle, of the Apollo 11 mission, landed on the Sea of Tranquility, on the side of the Moon facing Earth, 4 days after being launched from the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, on the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

(From 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated, until 1973, the launch site was known as Cape Kennedy. The Florida legislature changed the name back. Since the NASA facility was still named for JFK, the Kennedy family publicly accepted the decision.)

The mission's commander was Lieutenant Junior Grade Neil Alden Armstrong, U.S. Navy, from Wapakoneta, in western Ohio, about halfway between Toledo and Dayton. In contact with Mission Control, in Houston, Texas, he spoke the 1st words any human had spoken from the surface of another body in our solar system: "Houston, Tranquility Base here: The Eagle has landed."

Left to right: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin

With him, aboard Eagle, was the craft's pilot, Colonel Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., U.S. Air Force, known as Buzz, of the New York suburb of Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey. Orbiting the Moon above them, in the command module Columbia, was Colonel Michael Collins, U.S. Air Force, who grew up in many places around the world, as his father was a high-ranking U.S. Army officer.

All 3 men reached their 39th birthdays during the course of calendar year 1969, and each was taking part in his 2nd spaceflight, with their 1st having happened in 1966: Armstrong had commanded Gemini 8, Collins had flown on Gemini 10, and Aldrin had flown on Gemini 12 in 1966.

At 10:56 PM, Armstrong stepped down the ladder on the side of Eagle, and put his left foot down on the surface of the Moon. He chose his 1st words very carefully, knowing that the whole world would remember them: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Except, between his Midwestern accent and the transmission of the words from the Moon to Houston, from Houston to the TV networks in New York, and from the networks in New York through the TV set speakers of the world, it sounded like he said, "One small step for man..." Which made no sense, as "man" and "mankind" were usually interchangeable.

It didn't matter. A man was standing on the Moon, and he was an American. Buzz Aldrin followed Armstrong a few minutes later. Four days later, they returned to Earth, and got a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

Every Summer, my grandparents rented a bungalow at South Seaside Park, on the Jersey Shore. This was that weekend for 1969. They, and my parents, watched the Moon landing at The Sand Bar. Not yet born, I tell people I had "an obstructed view." The bar is still there, and is now Chef Mike's Atlantic Bar & Grill, or "The ABG." It is 84 road miles south of Midtown Manhattan.

None of the Apollo 11 astronauts suffered any ill effects from their trip. None of them ever went into space again. None had to.

Aldrin, Collins & Armstrong honored at the White House

on the 40th Anniversary, 2009

Collins would be appointed an Assistant Secretary of State, and serve as the director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where Columbia is on display. Aldrin battled clinical depression and alcoholism, recovered, and has become an advocate for recovery and for the space program.

Armstrong was, for a time, the most famous man in the world, more so than the President, the Pope, or any athlete. He could have used his fame to make gobs of money. Basically a private person, he chose not to. He taught at the University of Cincinnati, and served on the commissions that investigated the near-disaster of Apollo 13 in 1970 and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986.

In 1985, he was part of an expedition to the North Pole, led by a man who wanted to bring "the world's greatest explorers" together. Also on the expedition was Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who became the 1st man to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest in Nepal, in 1953. By a weird twist of fate, the Moon landing was on Hillary's 50th birthday.

Armstrong lived and worked on a farm near his Ohio hometown, and died of long-term heart trouble on August 25, 2012, at age 82. Collins died on April 28, 2021, at 90. As of July 20, 2022, Aldrin is still alive, at 92.

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The manned Apollo missions: The dates, the commanding officer, the lunar module pilot, the command module pilot, the command module, the lunar module, and what the mission is known for:

* Apollo 7, October 11 to 22, 1968: Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham, Donn Eisele, modules not named, the first 3-man U.S. space mission.

* Apollo 8, December 21 to 27, 1968: Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders, modules not named, the first Earth spacecraft to orbit the Moon, with the first view of the far side of the Moon shown to Earth, and the astronauts' Scripture reading on Christmas Eve.

* Apollo 9, March 3 to 13, 1969: James McDivitt, David Scott, Russell "Rusty" Schweickart, Gumdrop, Spider, testing of the separation and redocking of the modules while in lunar orbit.

* Apollo 10, May 18, to 26, 1969: Thomas Stafford, John Young, Gene Cernan, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, a full test of the lunar module, getting close to the Moon's surface, just to be sure it could be done, but not actually landing, and returning to dock with the command module.

* Apollo 11, July 16 to 24, 1969: Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Michael Collins, Columbia, Eagle, the first landing on the Moon, and the first Moonwalk.

* Apollo 12, November 14 to 24, 1969: Charles "Pete" Conrad, Alan Bean, Richard Gordon, Yankee Clipper, Intrepid, landing near the unmanned probe Surveyor 3, seeking to study the effects of long-term "residence" of man-made objects on the Moon.

* Apollo 13, April 11 to 17, 1970: Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert, Odyssey, Aquarius, the near-disaster that meant they couldn't land on the Moon, and, with Odyssey without power, needed Aquarius' power to get back to Earth safely.

* Apollo 14, January 31 to February 9, 1971: Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Stuart Roosa, the return to space after the Apollo 13 near-disaster. Shepard, who became the first American in space 10 years earlier, hit a golf ball on the Moon.

* Apollo 15, July 26 to August 7, 1971: David R. Scott, James Irwin, Alfred Worden, Endeavour, Falcon, the first use of the land vehicle known as the "lunar rover."

* Apollo 16, April 16 to 27, 1972: John Young, Charles Duke, Ken Mattingly, Casper, Orion, nothing particularly noteworthy, other than that Mattingly was supposed to be the command module pilot on Apollo 13, but got bumped for medical reasons, and got a second chance.

* Apollo 17, December 7 to 19, 1972: Gene Cernan, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, Ronald Evans, America, Challenger, the longest-lasting Moon mission -- and, through July 20, 2022, the last.

*

Landing on the Moon. Reaching the highest mountain. Running a mile in under 4 minutes, as Roger Bannister became the 1st man to do in 1954. Flying between the mainlands of North America and Europe, as Charles Lindbergh became the 1st man to do in 1927. These were huge events. Big deals were made of them at the time.

I was born at the end of 1969, 5 months after this epochal event. My generation -- even people 4 or 5 years older than I am -- can't remember a time when there had never been a man on the Moon.

Of course, most of us can't remember there being a man on the Moon, as Apollo 17 left on December 14, 1972, and there hasn't been a manned Moon landing since, launched by any nation.

But when Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon at 10:56 PM Eastern Time on that magical night, and said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," it felt like the ultimate achievement. Like we could do anything. As baseball historian Robert Creamer liked to say of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in 1941, "We did that. One of our boys. One of the human race did this marvelous thing."

And then, as Jerry Seinfeld pointed out in 1994, on the 25th Anniversary, everything we've done since, or have failed to do since, "is measured against that one momentous act." You know the saying: "If we can put a man on the Moon, why can't we (do some far simpler act)?"

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On July 20, 2010 -- it should have been a year earlier, on the 40th Anniversary of the event -- I listed the Major League Baseball games played on July 20, 1969, which was a Sunday. I did this because I'm a sports nut and a history buff. At the time, I did not know that I would end up making a regular "Scores On This Historic Day" feature for this blog 10 years later.

So, by allowing myself to copy-and-paste those scores today, I inadvertently gave myself a lucky break 11 years in advance.

According to an oft-told tale, in 1963, Gaylord Perry, a pretty good pitcher who made it to the Hall of Fame (some would say by cheating with illegal pitches), was taking batting practice with the San Francisco Giants, and their manager, Alvin Dark, said that man would land on the Moon before Perry hit a home run.

Well, Perry did indeed hit his 1st major league home run -- his 1st of 6, as it turned out -- on July 20, 1969, apparently just a few minutes after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, but a few hours before Armstrong stepped onto its surface. So did Dark, or anyone else, actually make this dubious, but oh-so-slightly true, prediction? It's uncertain.

On July 20, 1969, the Yankees were playing the Washington Senators, managed by Ted Williams, at the old Yankee Stadium. In the bottom of the 11th inning, Roy White doubled, and Gene Michael (not exactly a clutch hitter, not exactly any kind of hitter for that matter) singled him home to win, 3-2.

The scoreboard at Yankee Stadium,

announcing the landing (not the Moonwalk).

Other games on Moonday:

* The Mets split a doubleheader with the expansion Montreal Expos at Jarry Park in Montreal. The Expos won the 1st game, 3-2, with a Mack Jones homer off Gary Gentry making a winner of Gary Waslewski.

The Mets did recover pretty well from this one, starting with winning the 2nd game, 4-3, with a 10th-inning sequence very similar to the one the Yankees had in their game: A double by a starting outfielder with a lot of promise, in this case Ron Swoboda, followed by a game-winning single by a light-hitting infielder, in this case Bobby Pfeil. Don Cardwell started the nightcap for the Mets, but Ron Taylor blew a save before Jack DiLauro turned out to be the winning pitcher.

* The Phillies lost a doubleheader to the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 and 6-1 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, with Ferguson Jenkins outdueling Grant Jackson in the 1st game and Dick Selma beating Bill Champion in the 2nd.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-5 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The California Angels split a doubleheader with the Oakland Athletics at Anaheim Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California. The Angels took the 1st game, 7-3. This was the major league debut of Vida Blue, and he was the losing pitcher. The A's won the 2nd game, 9-6. Over the 2 games, Reggie Jackson went 4-for-8 with a home run and 3 RBIs, and Sal Bando went 5-for-8 with 5 RBIs.

* Another doubleheader was played at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians in the opener, 3-2; the Tribe took the nightcap, 5-4 in 10 innings.

* It must have rained all over the country the day before, because a 5th doubleheader was played, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The expansion Kansas City Royals swept the White Sox, winning the 1st game 8-6, then taking the 2nd 3-2 in 11.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the expansion Seattle Pilots (soon to become the Milwaukee Brewers), 4-0 at Sick's Stadium in Seattle.

In his memoir of the 1969 season, Ball Four, Pilots pitcher Jim Bouton wrote:  

If you want to know what aspect of the moon landing was discussed most, in the bullpen it was the sex life of the astronauts. We thought it a terrible arrangement that they should go three weeks or more without any sex life. (Pitcher John) Gelnar said that if those scientists were really on the ball they would have provided three germ-free broads for the astronauts.

* The Atlanta Braves pounded the expansion San Diego Padres, 10-0 at what was then known as Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron got 2 hits, but neither was a home run. The Braves did get a homer from a future Hall-of-Famer, Orlando Cepeda.

* And in the game where Perry hit his 1st big-league homer, the Giants were playing their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The Giants won, 7-3.

February 9, 1920: Baseball Outlaws the Spitball

 

Burleigh Grimes, the last man to legally do it

February 9, 1920: Baseball's National Commission -- then consisting of National League President John Heydler, American League President Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson, and Cincinnati Reds owner August "Garry" Herrmann -- votes to outlaw a set of actions that results in what had been known as "trick" or "freak" pitches, which fell under the unofficial category of "spitballs."

Ever since, there has been a perception that baseball outlawed such pitches in the wake of Carl Mays hitting Ray Chapman in the head with a pitch on August 16, 1920, causing Chapman to lose consciousness, and die the next day. Certainly, it would have been the right thing to do, had it not already been done. But the ban actually came before that.

There were other notable rule changes that took effect for 1920:

* Fly balls hit over the fence along the left and right-field lines will be judged fair or foul according to where the ball passes the fence. Previously, umpires would judge based on where the ball landed. On June 25, the rule reverted to the 1919 version, which is based upon where the ball disappears from view. The rule would re-revert to the 1920 version before the 1928 season began.

* When a batter hits a ball over the fence to win the game, he is now credited with a home run. Previously, the batter would be rewarded with only the number of bases needed for the team to win the game and were not considered home runs. In other words, if a game was tied in the bottom of the 9th inning, and a runner was on 2nd base, and the batter hit the ball fair and over the fence, since only 2 bases were required to drive the winning run home, the batter was only credited with a double (and an RBI). From this point onward, it would go into the books as a home run (and the batter would also get RBI credit for driving himself home).

* A balk was to be called if the pitcher releases the ball while the catcher is out of his box.

* The failure of a preceding runner to touch a base would not affect the status of a succeeding runner.

* Cases where the defense intentionally allows the runner to advance without attempting to put him out are scored as "defensive indifference," and do not count as stolen bases. The lack of a putout attempt does not, by itself, indicate defensive indifference; the official scorer must also factor in the game situation and the defensive players' actions.

But the biggest change was the outlawing of the trick pitches. The term "spitball" implies that a pitcher spit on the ball. That's not usually how it happened. Usually, the pitcher would lick his fingers, and then grip the ball, so the moistness would cause it to drop just before it reached the plate, like what would now be called a hard sinker.

Other "foreign substances" would be used on the ball, such as tobacco juice (chewing tobacco was all too common for players, especially pitchers, even into the 1980s, and many died from cancer as a result), Vaseline or some other petroleum product, or resin (not to be confused with rosin, from the rosin bag on the pitcher's mound). Some would damage the ball, including "scuffing" it with an emery board: The emery ball was common in the early 20th Century. Some would just rub the ball in the dirt on the mound. These actions became known as "doctoring the ball."

But all this did more than just make the ball drop or curve sharply. Sometimes, it would make the ball rise, or come inside and hit the batter. Or, worse, both rise and hit the batter, sometimes in the head. And when there was dirt on the ball, turning a white ball brown, or some sort of gunk on the ball, making it an even darker color, that made it hard to see, especially later in the day when the Sun sank in the sky. It's this reason that led later observers to see the year, "1920," and presume that the rule was put into place after Chapman's death. The ban happened before.

If a ball was found to be doctored, the pitcher and the ball would both be thrown out of the game, and the pitcher then fined and suspended. And, while a pitcher blowing on his hand to warm it up during a game in cold weather was allowed (and still is), if an umpire thought he saw a pitcher stick his finger in his mouth, the umpire would automatically call a ball. For a 2nd offense, a warning. For a 3rd offense, ejection from the game, and a 10-game suspension.

Detroit Tigers center fielder Ty Cobb, the best player of the era, in one of his many "Old man"/"Get off my lawn" pronouncements, complained in his autobiography, "Freak pitches... were outlawed when the owners greedily sold out to home runs." Indeed, fewer sharp-breaking pitches and easier-to-see balls did give rise to what became known as the Lively Ball Era. Cobb kept on hitting until his retirement in 1928, though, never batting as low as .323 until his last season.

Cobb wasn't the only one who objected to the rule change: Many pitchers did, claiming the spitball was their best pitch, their "money pitch," their "bread and butter." So 17 pitchers were "grandfathered in," allowed to continue using it: Ray Fisher, Doc Ayers, Ray Caldwell (all retiring after the 1921 season), Phil Douglas (1922), Dana Fillingim, Dutch Leonard, Allen Russell (all retiring after 1925), Marv Goodwin (who died right after the 1925 season), Allen Sothoron (1926), Dick Rudolph (1927), Urban Shocker (died of heart trouble late in the 1928 season), Hall-of-Famer Stan Coveleski (1928), Bill Doak (1929), Clarence Mitchell (1932), Hall-of-Famer Urban "Red" Faber and Jack Quinn (1933), and, finally, Hall-of-Famer Burleigh Grimes (1934).

Although Carl Mays was known to throw the spitball, he was not one of the pitchers "grandfathered in," and he did not rely on the pitch after the ban. And no player is known to have publicly complained about having to face any of the 17 pitchers after the ban.

In March 1955, Commissioner Ford Frick advocated for the return of the spitball, telling a sportswriter, "If I had my way, I'd legalize the old spitter. It was a great pitch, and one of the easiest to throw. There was nothing dangerous about it." Despite his enthusiasm, the team owners didn't vote on it, and the pitch remained illegal.

After 1934, a few pitchers were accused of throwing doctored balls, including Claude Passeau of the 1940s Chicago Cubs, Hugh Casey of the 1940s Brooklyn Dodgers, Preacher Roe of the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, Early Wynn of the 1950s Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, Lew Burdette of the 1950s Milwaukee Braves, and Don Drysdale of the 1960s Los Angeles Dodgers.

One pitcher who ended up making the Hall of Fame admitted to doing it: Gaylord Perry. In 1975, he published an autobiography, Me and the Spitter. He claimed to have used Vaseline, but wouldn't say where he hid it. He would also fake hitters out by wiping the sweat off his face, and off his brow, leading some people to think he kept the Vaseline on the brim of his cap. It was a mind game: "Just the idea that batters think I'm throwing the spitter when I might not be helps me," he said. "Some of 'em worry more about whether I'm throwing it than about hitting it."

Only once was he ever caught on the field, in 1982, at the age of 44, having already joined the 300 Wins Club and the 3,000 Strikeouts Club, and having become the 1st pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both Leagues, and, at the time, the oldest pitcher to win the Cy Young.

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February 9, 1920 was a Monday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And the NHL had no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.