Spit and Polish

New York Herald Tribune ^ | 29 March 1957 | Red Smith

[BluesDuke]

SPIT AND POLISH

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March 29, 1957

Early in the training season, Charley Dressen split his squad down the middle and the two halves -- designated in the box score as the Have Nots and Haven't Eithers -- played a ball game that ended in a tie. "The Senators this year," wrote Bob Addie in the "Washington Post," "are so bad they can't beat themselves."

Since then Dressen's disciples have contrived to beat themselves in some games and the opposition in others, same as all the clubs do during the muscletone season. No effort has been made to check the records, but dispatches from the camps have left the impression that there has been an uncommon number of extra-inning games and low scores this spring.

If that is so, then some original thinker is going to declare in the paper one of these mornings that, "the pitchers are ahead of the hitters." After championship play starts the hitters will catch up, Mickey Mantle win lose a ball in Westchester County, and the inevitable cry of protest will arise about the lively ball.

It happens every year, so maybe now is as good a time as any to propose a remedy. When the pitcher is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, the rules ought to permit him to retaliate against the batter, i.e., to spit in his eye. The suggestion is put forward in all seriousness. If, as some believe, emphasis on hitting has knocked the game out of joint, then the rulemakers could take a long step toward restoring balance between offense and defense by returning the spitball to respectability.

Because spit is a horrid word, misconceptions have grown up regarding the irrigated delivery. Authors who should know better have written that it was ruled out because it was a dangerous pitch, difficult to control and a menace to the batter's life and limb. In the popular mind, the spitter is not only unsanitary and illegal but intrinsically dishonest, a cheating device to be employed only by a low, unprincipled cad.

Actually it is an effective pitch when mastered, no more difficult to control than any other. Leaders of the saliva set like Red Faber, Clarence Mitchell, Bill Doak and Burleigh Grimes were no wilder than their arid playmates, and if the records were to show that Grimes potted more batsmen than some of his contemporaries, that should be attributed to his combative disposition, not his moist delivery.

The only thing wrong with the spitter is that it has been illegal since 1920. Its use was prohibited that year, except by pitchers already employing it in the majors. Faber continued on his slobbery way through 1933 and Grimes was still drooling in 1934, but when they departed that was the end of sanctioned expectorations.

There are qualified baseball men who believe that legalizing the spitter would do more than arm the pitcher with a weapon which he needs. There is at least some ground for a belief that it would mitigate the plague of sore arms which is an occupational hazard blighting many young lives.

All the evidence indicates that the pitch was easy on the arm, for Faber was still with the White Sox at forty-six and Doak, Mitchell and Grimes all pitched into or past their fortieth year.

When they departed, spitting didn't cease all together, though only Ted Williams has done it openly. Preacher Roe has confessed that he slipped in a wet one now and then when he pitched for the Dodgers, Lew Burdette is accused of it, and Nelson Potter got caught at it.

The records credit Potter with nineteen victories for the pennant-winning Browns of 1944 but with a little more guile he could have made it twenty. He was winning another game that summer when the umpire detected more on the ball than the A. J. Reach Co. had put there. "Shame!" cried the umpire, "Begone."

In 1920 the growing popularity of Babe Ruth made fans and club owners home run conscious, and trick deliveries were outlawed to aid the batters and draw more customers. The profit motive sired the rule and it is for personal profit that pitchers occasionally violate it, moistening fingertip with the tongue or with a smidgeon of perspiration from brow, neck or forearm.

They aren't necessarily evil characters. There is a classic tale about the estimable Tommy Bridges, Detroit's wonderful little curve ball pitcher, struggling to protect a one-run lead over Washington with menacing Stan Spence at bat.

He got Spence on three dipping strikes whose erratic behavior brought loud prtests from the batter and his manager, ossie Bluege. Spence, Bluege and Bill Summers, the umpire, trooped out to the mound where Summers put the question bluntly: Had Bridges thrown a spitter?

Tommy was deeply hurt. This, he told Summers reproachfully, was tantamount to a charge of cheating. As the delegation turned away, defeated, Bridges cupped his glove to his mouth.

"Hey, Bill," he called in a stage whisper, "wasn't that last one a sweetheart?"

[BluesDuke]

Attention, pitchers - want to bring a little balance back to the game? Want to level the playing field and not let those glandular hitters have all the breaks? Dial 1-800-GAYLORD.

I mean, reality check: The spitter wasn't outlawed because the pitch that killed Ray Chapman was a loaded pitch. (It wasn't.) They banned the spitter because when The Bambino came in with the big bat and the big thrill thereupon, the Lords of Baseball wanted nothing to interfere with the oooh-and-aaah side of the game. Artistry be damned.

Let's take up the spirit of one George Frazier. "I don't put foreign substances on the ball," he once said when challenged about putting foreign substances on his pitches. "Everything I put on is from the good old U.S. of A." I mean, if Whitey Ford can do it, you can, too. Bring back the balance. The hitters will still get their big hits (hell, all they have to do is wait for the spitter that doesn't break - they call it "hitting it on the dry side".)

We need spit and polish back in baseball. Spit and polish...and KY, Vaseline, whatever floats your boat...

[socal_parrot]

Baseball has been making rules to favor the hitter for years. The strike zone is about the size of a shoe box now. It's all about excitement now. Barry Bonds comes to the plate about five times a game and can jack one at anytime. A no-hitter is only exciting the last two innings. With games going over three hours these days, they have to keep the fans' attention somehow.

[BluesDuke]

A no-hitter is exciting only in the last two innings? My, my, such unappreciation for the craftsmanship of pitching! I've seen a video of the complete Sandy Koufax perfect game. The beauty of it was that, had it not been for Lou Johnson, Chicago Cub pitcher Bob Hendley would have piggybacked a no-hitter on Koufax's gem. Johnson got the only hit of the game and was stranded on base; the Dodgers scored the only run of the game on a walk, a sacrifice, a steal and an error. A master craftsman going against an otherwise journeyman who was having a career day. A real baseball fan loved it.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if a baseball game lasted five hours. But I do think the balance needs to come back. As it is, the umpires play Big Nanny when a pitcher does nothing more warmongering than moving a batter back off the plate (I mean, have you seen the way some of these clowns are choking off the inside strike zone?), and aside from the incredible shrinking strike zone, I think the nannygoating of the pitchers has been another key factor in the hitting explosion. I love a few good belts into the seats as much as the next fan, but the pitchers have got to take the balance back. And if the spitter is one way to do it, I'm all for it.

Besides, one of the real pleasures of baseball has always been watching for who might be loading one and who might be driven to the rye bottle over it in the opposing dugout.

Then there was Gaylord Perry. The K-Y Kid was stunned one fine day when an umpire who had been frisking him rather liberally (but never arraigning him) hailed him one morning and asked him to come see his son play Little League. Perry obliged. After the game, when the ump's son pitched and got shelled, the ump asked Perry, "Gaylord, would you do me a favour and show him how you do it?" Perry chortled - and then showed the kid how to throw the spitter!

Classic pressbox comment when two reputed spitballers, Tommy John (then with the Yankees) and Don Sutton (then with the Brewers, who were then in the American League), faced each other in a start. "Tommy John and Don Sutton? If there's one clean ball from that game, they ought to send it to Cooperstown." (During the same game, George Steinbrenner was harassing then-Yankee manager Lou Piniella to "do something" about Sutton. Retorted Piniella, "Come on, George. TJ's doing the same thing Sutton's doing, only TJ's doing it better.")

Whitey Ford has admitted that, after he retired, he got so fed up with getting rapped around in Old Timer's Games that he reverted to his latter-career habit of doctoring balls.

[socal_parrot]

Don't get me wrong. I was speaking from the standpoint of marketing the game to the casual fan and TV. TV likes to see homeruns and high scores. I just got back from a week in Phoenix where I saw 5 games in 5 days at 5 different parks. I loved it. As for giving the pitchers more of an advantage, I think the first thing they can do is enforce a standard and consistent strike zone.

[Mike Fieschko]

Man oh man. A big thanks for posting Red Smith.

Heading over to the public library to see what they have of his.

The Trib was still around for a few years growing up, but Dad always took the New York Times, Newark Evening News and New Brunswick Daily Home News.

[BluesDuke]

This essay was included in the maginficent anthology, Red Smith On Baseball, published two years ago and now available in quality paperback. Hunt the used book stores and you're also likely to find two previous (and excellent) collections, The Red Smith Reader and To Absent Friends From Red Smith, the latter an anthology of his lovely eulogies.

Red Smith, in case you didn't know, stayed aboard when the Herald Tribune made its ill-fated merge with the World-Telegram and Sun and the Journal-American into the World Journal Tribune, a merger which lasted only fifteen months. When the World Journal Tribune collapsed, Smith joined The New York Times, where he was their lead sports columnist for the rest of his life (he died in 1982) and won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary during the 1970s.

Smith was one of my favourite baseball writers growing up. I frankly wish someone at the Los Angeles Times would think to do a similar baseball-only anthology on their late, great Jim Murray (who also won the Pulitzer)...

A rookie on the Reds, a few years ago, asked me who that little old man was - and I said, 'That little old man is Red Smith, but don't let his size and age fool you. He's got Nolan Ryan's fastball and Sandy Koufax's curve. And in his league he's the best there is. - Tom Seaver.

[2Trievers]

You have mail Babe &;-)