Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 165, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1917 — RUSSELL FORD QUITS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RUSSELL FORD QUITS

Inventor of Emery Ball Cannot Get Into Condition. Former New York Yankee Was Supposed to Be Spitball Artist, But He Never Used It—Sweeney Gave Secret Away. Russell Ford, former major league pitcher, announced the other day that he had quit organized baseball because he “could not get Into form.” He will become a draughtsman, his former employment. Ford originated the emery ball, which has since been legislated from the game. The delivery was so called because emery paper was used to roughen part of the surface. The rough part, of course, heightened the effect of air friction so that with practice a clever pitcher could make the ball break in all sorts of freakish ways. Ford, for Instance, supposedly a spitball pitcher, never used a spltter. It was the emery ball, instead, which at will he could break in either direction. When Ford jumped to the Buffalo club of the Federal league and Sweeney was Induced to stay in New

York at $9,000, Big Ed got another pal and battery mate in Ray Keating. Sweeney taught Keating the emery ball trick. The secret was too good for Keating to keep all to himself. They do say Ray told every pitcher he met. It wasn’t a secret at all very long, and the first victim exposed was none other than Keating himself. Eddie Collins had Keating unmasked before a Saturday crowd at the Polo grounds. The emery ball fs barred in the ma* jor leagues. Anyone using it will be subjected to severe discipline. Alert as all ball players are, no trace of the evil has been disclosed. It does seem in these days of slow games that the players are allowed too great leeway in looking for the emery bait They often try to alibi themselves with just such tricks as these.

Russell Ford.