Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1877 — An Experiment in Pitching a Curved Ball. [ARTICLE]

An Experiment in Pitching a Curved Ball.

An experiment was recently tried in Cincinnati to demonstrate that a pitcher can pitch curved balls. It was a success. It was also demonstrated in Danbury in the past week, but in a more simple way. A slim man was standing on the corner of Munson and Pine streets when the clubs were coming in. Seeing the ball lit the hands of a friend he invited a pitch. The holder of the ball put one foot ahead of the other, shut his lips tight togethor, glared with awful ferocity at his friend, and then twisting his arm twice from the shoulder to tne elbow, and four times from the elbow to the wrist, let drive the deadly missile. The slim man, who had intensely watched this mysterious preparation, saw the ball was coming to his right and laid in that direction, but was immediately convinced that it was turning to the left, and while striking out in that direction was astonished to observe that it was about to plank him In the middle of the back, and promptly whirled around to intercept

it, but not seeing it at all in that direction, and being dreadfully excited, he jumped about again, and just in time to eaten the ball on the bridge of his nose. There being plenty of pavement back of him be was saved from falling any great distance, and is thus preserved as a living evidence that a ball curves, although it is not likely he will ever smell again with any sort of precision. —Danbury News.