With Mark McGwire’s recent admission of cheating whilst in an MLB uniform, I’ve been thinking about some of the other famous cheaters in the history of the game. Many of them, despite their shady reputations, have landed in the Hall of Fame. Is it really fair to keep steroid users out when other admitted rule-breakers have made it in to Cooperstown? That’s not for me to decide, and that’s also not what I’d like to talk about today.

What I would like to discuss is that slimy, slippery aberration known as the spitball.

There are two schools of thought on the mechanics of a good spit. One method is to apply spit to a single side of the ball and toss it just like any other pitch. These pitches tend to break to the side, as will any ball which has a defaced section. The second method has the pitcher gripping the ball away from the seams, and applying saliva at the points of contact with his fingers. By then squeezing the thumb and forefingers, the ball will squirt out rather than roll off the fingers when thrown. This eliminates much of the pitch’s spin, causing it to drop much more than expected.

Did you know there was a time when the spitter was a legal pitch? Before it was outlawed in the winter of 1919-20, hurlers (or slimers, if you will) across the game used it as a regular part of their arsenal. Even after the partial ban in 1920 (which allowed teams to designate two pitchers on their rosters as legal “spitballers”), it remained in widespread use. After it’s outright ban from the sport prior to the 1921 season, the sultans of slobber not grandfathered in were forced to go underground.

Some of baseball’s best hurlers have been known to apply “foreign substances” to their wicked pitches. Preacher Roe, a mainstay in the Brooklyn Dodgers rotation of the 1950’s, was known for both his uncanny ability to control the spitter and his mastery of detection avoidance. Lew Burdette and Don Drysdale too were known to alter the shape or shine of the ball.

And let’s not forget the great Gaylord Perry, whose “Vaseline ball” carried him into Cooperstown. Among other hiding places, Perry used to put the cream on the zipper of his pants. Think about it – If you were an umpire, would you check there?

- Taylor Maxwell

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Tags | Don Drysdale, Gaylord Perry, Hall of Fame, Lew Burdette, MLB, Preacher Roe, Vaseline ball