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Blanchard! Do you see them white lines? Do you know what they are for? They are there to hit the ball on! An' them fellas in the middle are called fielders - Casey Stengel, manager of the 1962 New York Mets, to first baseman Jim Marshall - whom he confused with Yankee reserve catcher Johnny Blanchard (whom Marshall resembled a bit) - before Marshall took his first at-bat in the Mets' first ever home game. (It must have taken: Marshall ripped a double and subsequently scored the Mets' first-ever run at home.)

Some spitball stories I love to tell....

Lew Burdette - Burdette's technique is said to have been tobacco juice; a known fidgeter on the mound and an equally known tobacco chewer, Burdette would spit the juice into a certain spot astride the pitching rubber and, whenever he bent down to adjust his shoelaces (a habit he had had since his minor league days), he would scoop up a small bit of the moist mud his tobacco juice would make. (Jay Johnstone: You could see that stuff flying off the ball when it came to the plate, and you'd be walking back to the dugout having to change your shirt. But that was the trouble - you'd be walking back to the dugout!). Sportswriter Red Smith nicknamed the Milwaukee Braves righthander "Chief Slobber on Stitches." Burdette, by the way, was a playful sort who actually used the famous Harvey Haddix perfect-game-that-wasn't - Haddix's twelve perfect innings busted up in the thirteenth; Burdette pitched against him and went the distance to get the win, finally - to try getting a raise in his contract for the following season: That guy pitched the greatest game in baseball history and he still couldn't beat me, so I must be the greatest pitcher of all time! (Reportedly, Burdette got his raise anyway...)

Gaylord Perry - Umpires frisked the KY Kid more often than New York police frisk suspected Mafiosi. But then there was the time Perry bumped into one of his would-be arresting officers in town on an off-day, and the ump told the future Hall of Famer his son pitched in the Little League but the kid's team was usually getting their jocks knocked off, especially when his son was pitching. "Gaylord," said the ump, "would you do me a favour? Would you come with me over to their field and teach my son how you do it?"

Rick Honeycutt - Talk about a petty criminal! Honeycutt, then with the Seattle Mariners (who, at the time, could have been tried by jury for attempted murder of baseball as it was), got caught red-handed with a thumbtack taped to his glove hand with a flesh-coloured bandage. Honeycutt was so embarrassed that, when he walked toward the dugout upon being given the ho-heave, he forgot about the tack...and wiped sweat off his forehead with the same hand...causing a side-to-side gash in the skin from the tack!

George Frazier - Known best as the last man to lose three games in one World Series, Frazier was a Chicago Cub when, responding to comments from league officials about cracking down on "foreign substances" on pitches, he couldn't resist: I don't use foreign substances. Everything I use is from the good ol' U.S. of A.

Mike Flanagan - He once drew sportswriter Thomas Boswell aside in spring training, held up a fresh baseball, then took an unraveled coathanger and cut three straight gashes across the meat of the hide. Any time I need five new pitches, I got 'em. Boswell quoted him that way in an article about spitballers, "Salvation By Salivation," and Flanagan never complained. (Ray Miller, Baltimore Oriole pitching coach, to a pitcher who fumed when Miller, supposedly, let it drop that he had a pretty good spitter: What's the problem? I just took two points off your ERA!)

Ross (Scuzz) Grimsley - Toiling for the Orioles one season, Grimsley was mildly surprised when manager Earl Weaver came to the mound and told the pitcher - famous enough for his oil-slick long hair - If you know how to cheat, now's the time to do it.

Whitey Ford - Toward the end of his career, Ford had a few cute tricks of his own, especially his wedding ring, which had a rasp in it enough that, in his words, It was like having my own tool bench out there. In fact, even after he retired, Whitey was liable to cut a ball in Old Timers' Games...because the first one he appeared in after he retired, he got lit and was a little embarrassed. After the umps got wise to his ring, Ford had catcher Elston Howard scrape the ball against his shin guard buckles before returning it to Ford. The buckle ball, Jim Bouton has said, sang two choruses of "Aida".

Phil (The Vulture) Regan - Regan had his career year in 1966, as the new Los Angeles Dodgers' go-to guy in the bullpen if a starter got into trouble deep in the game. Regan apparently had such an instinct for knowing when to start warming up, before manager Walter Alston called for him directly, that Sandy Koufax hung the nickname "The Vulture" on him. (It's said that the nickname became so popular, as was Regan with Dodger fans that season, that when a fan sent him a live vulture as a pet, Regan named the bird Sandy in return...) Ironically, the Chicago Cubs were able to pick up the Vulture from the Dodgers in a trade because Regan developed a rare and temporary form of rheumatoid arthritis as the 1968 season began. Not even the Dodgers' renowned Dr. Robert Kerlan could have guessed that was Regan's strain (understandable, considering Sandy Koufax's troubles with traumatic arthritis), and the club made the deal. Regan recovered and the Cubs were thought to have robbed the Dodgers blind in that deal. His propensity to sweat heavily enabled him to load his spitter and, because the umpires were so attuned to tricks and gimmicks and substances, they never figured out that his arm sweat was Regan's technique - even though they knew on sight that his ball was doing the spitter's dance...until the day in August 1968 that umpire Chris Pelekoudas searched him, including his cap, claiming there was Vaseline on the cap - which was never proven. It provoked a garbage shower from Wrigley Field fans and ejections for manager Leo Durocher, catcher Randy Hundley, and outfielder Al Spangler, while Regan's concentration was rattled as Pelekoudas's search provoked more managers to demand searches whenever Regan pitched against them.

Bob Purkey - Thomas Boswell has said no one suspected the early-1960s Cincinnati pitcher of throwing the wet one "until his catcher went out to warm him up wearing a bib."
Eddie Lopat and Preacher Roe - Roe admitted after he retired that he threw the spitter and did it the old fashioned way: spitting right into his glove, which the umpires (looking as usual for little tricks and deceptions) never saw. Lopat was often enough suspected. Casey Stengel, admiring the guile and wiles of the two pitchers when they went against each other in a World Series game, marveled to the press: Those two fellas certainly make baseball seem like fun and easy, don't they?...They just give 'em a little of this and a little of that and swindle 'em!

Gaylord Perry - Umpires frisked the KY Kid more often than New York police frisk suspected Mafiosi. But then there was the time Perry bumped into one of his would-be arresting officers in town on an off-day, and the ump told the future Hall of Famer his son pitched in the Little League but the kid's team was usually getting their jocks knocked off, especially when his son was pitching. "Gaylord," said the ump, "would you do me a favour? Would you come with me over to their field and teach my son how you do it?"

When Gaylord Perry wrote his book admitting that he had thrown a spitter, he was pitching for the Indians. He included some tips on how to throw it. I was maybe 12 and started trying to throw it.

He did a personal appearance not long after that I went to. I asked him if I was doing it right and he gave me a couple tips. Some of the adults were annoyed, most amused. The thing is: it worked. I threw one to my brother that he reached up from his catcher's stance to grab. It hit him in the toe.

Too bad I had too little control and even less velocity on my fastball....LOL.

-Eric

I remember how, after my brothers moved out of the house, Dad only had us girls to mold into players, but we were pretty good in high school & big league senior softball.

There were times poor old Dad would forget who he was playing catch with though. He pulled that Mike Flanagan deal with a nail he kept in his sock, putting scratches deep into the cover of the ball & when I complained that it seemed like a perfect waste of a good ball, he read me the riot act. "Your fastball is as straight as an arrow, you don't have a curveball, and you NEED something to make it move!"

When I stopped him and asked how many major league pitchers wore a C cup bra, he shut up and walked off in a huff.