Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1910 — HIGHLANDER’S STAR PITCHER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HIGHLANDER’S STAR PITCHER

The wonderful success of Russell Ford, the star pitcher of the Highlanders, is due,principally to the development of a freak spit ball curve. Lajoie was unable to find it the other day and did not get a single drive off the young architect. The regular spit ball is thrown by covering the tips of the first and second fingers with saliva so that the ball will slip off those fingers and not take a rotary motion. The ball therefore gets its direction from the thumb and wobbles to the plate in a peculiar jerky fashion. The only trouble with that curve is the

Inability of the pitcher to make it; break “in” or "out” to the batter according to the wishes of the twirler* Ford has solved that problem by inventing a way of making the curv£' break In. Ford found that by moistening the knuckle of his third finger with saliva the bell would slip off from the side instead of the tips of the fingers, and as there is no friction on the right side of the ball it would gradually drop “inside” of the plate. He controls it perfectly. He can also make the ball break outward by moistening the thumb.

Russell Ford.