CHAPTER V

The pitching motion—How Zahniser betrayed his curve ball—Ruth’s tongue gets him into trouble—Sherry Smith catches runners off first base—Hinkey Haines’ experience—Slow ball pitching—Why it is valuable—The type of hitters who are fooled by slow stuff—Experience counts—Fielding aids pitcher.

When I hear the boys talking about pitching motions I always think of Paul Zahniser, who used to pitch for Washington and the Red Sox. All the time Paul was in the big leagues he was a “cousin” of mine. That’s what we call pitchers who are easy to hit. Every time he pitched against us I knew I would get two or three hits—and so did he.

But he never knew why. Now that he’s back in the minor leagues again I can tell the secret. I got hits off Paul because I always knew just what he was going to pitch. Zahniser had a Walter Johnson motion. That is he lifted his arms above his head before he delivered the ball. And after I faced him once or twice I noticed that on his fast ball he raised his hands far above his head. When he was pitching his curve ball his hands went only as high as his eyes.

Naturally I knew what was coming before he ever threw—and I was all set.

Most pitchers have some little habit in pitching that gives them away. And sometimes it takes a long time before they discover what it is, and correct it. A lot of them never do. Take Herb Pennock’s overhand curve ball for instance. Opposing hitters can always tell from Herb’s motion just when that overhand curve is coming. Fortunately for Herb that particular curve is such a good one that they can’t hit it even when he “telegraphs” it.

I had a habit of my own like that in my pitching days. And I never knew it until I had stopped pitching and had started playing the outfield. Then some of the boys tipped me off.

It all happened one day when we were riding along through Indiana on a Western trip. The boys had been playing cards all morning and along about noon interest in the game began to lag and they started talking baseball. Sherry Smith had beat us the day before, and there’s a baby who has a real pitching motion. Naturally the boys talked about Sherry and in the course of the conversation I started in to kid some of our pitchers.

“Why don’t you guys get a motion like Sherry’s?” I asked Pennock, “then you’d be real pitchers. There’s one fellow who doesn’t telegraph everything he throws.”

Wallie Pipp laughed.

“Listen Big Boy,” he said, “let me tell you something. You try to kid these other fellows and you did more telegraphing in your pitching days than any of them. That curve ball of yours was a breeze!”

And then Wallie proceeded to tell me that whenever I pitched a curve ball I stuck my tongue out of the corner of my mouth—a dead give away. And everybody in the league knew it except me! Imagine that—a pitcher for four or five seasons, and still telegraphing a curve ball every time I threw one. It just goes to show that a pitcher can never be sure of himself.

And I know Wallie told me the truth that day—for since I’ve stopped pitching I’ve had a dozen different players tell me the same thing. And one day just for fun I tried it out. I did a little pitching before the game and sure enough, every time I went to pitch a curve ball, that tongue came sticking out! Naturally no one tipped me off until after my pitching days were over.

Another place where a pitcher needs a good motion is in holding a runner on first base. And there again, is a thing that comes only from practice. Some fellows never get it. I’ve seen Carl Mays work for a half hour at a time practicing throws to first base, and trying to perfect a throw that started the same as his regular pitching motion. Ed Walsh was a wonder at picking men off. And all left handed pitchers can develop a move pretty easily. That’s because as they stand on the rubber they face naturally toward first and can get the ball over with a flip.

The best man I ever saw at picking a man off first base was Sherrod Smith, the old left hander with Brooklyn and Cleveland. There was one chap it wasn’t safe to take a five foot lead on. He’d pick you off almost before you knew what happened.

Which reminds me of Hinkey Haines and a thing that happened to him. When Hinkey came to the Yankees from Penn State College he had a reputation for speed on the bases. And he deserved it too. He was as fast as any man in the league. So one day in Cleveland when Sherry was working against us and the game was tight, Hinkey was sent in to run for Schang.

Hinkey trotted down to first base. Charley O’Leary was coaching and before play started Charley walked over and warned Hinkey:

“Now watch that guy,” he said, “He’s tough. He’ll pick you off if you take any lead. Don’t go more than three feet off the bag.”

Hinkey nodded that he understood and Charley walked back to the coach’s box. It’s not more than two steps from the bag, but before Charley reached there he heard a yell. Between the time he had finished warning Haines and had walked back to the coacher’s box, Sherry had nipped Haines. And caught him flat footed too. That play cost us a ball game—but we all had a laugh on the bench just the same. For there wasn’t a man on the club who at some time or another hadn’t been a victim of the same play.

What a motion old Sherry has. There isn’t another pitcher in the league who can even come close to it.

After a man has been pitching for a time he just naturally picks up certain tricks of the trade—little things that have nothing to do with the physical side of pitching but have a lot to do with making a man a finished performer.

For instance, suppose your club is one run ahead or tied toward the end of the game. The first man up singles. The next fellow comes to the plate and you know he is going to sacrifice. What do you do?

It’s a question that has many an amateur pitcher guessing—but the old-timer doesn’t even hesitate. No matter who the hitter is, or what type hitter he may be, the wise pitcher pitches high and fast. And here’s why.

When a man is bunting he uses a stiff arm motion, and pushes the ball. With a motion of this sort it’s hard for him to reach a ball shoulder high effectively, and still keep control of bat and ball. You can prove that in a minute. Pick up a bat, with hands well separated as if to bunt, and then try and hit an imaginary ball that’s on line with your shoulder and just over the inside corner of the plate. See how awkward you feel and how hard it is to reach the given spot effectively.

With a pitch of that sort the hitter seven times out of ten will foul off the pitch, or will pop up a little fly that can be gathered in by the pitcher or catcher. Better still there’s a fifty-fifty chance that he will miss the ball entirely. As I said before that’s a little trick of pitching that becomes a habit with the old timer pitcher. It’s one of the little things that a man learns by experience.

There are others too. For instance the pitcher must always work in conjunction with his infield and outfield. A hitter is up—say a left hand hitter who naturally hits to right field. The infield and outfield know this and they naturally shift their position to handle a ball hit in that direction. Once shifted, then it’s up to the pitcher to see that he makes the hitter send the ball to the right side of the diamond.

And nine times out of ten the method is identical. They pitch inside to a left hand hitter and outside to a right hand hitter. If they want to make sure the hitter hits to left field, the system is reversed.

Naturally there are exceptions—but these are individual cases. And individual hitters are classified by pitchers after a few turns around the league.

In late years slow ball pitching has come to be particularly effective. That’s because there are so many free-swinging hitters, and men of this type are apt to be thrown off balance by slow stuff. But just the same the smart experienced pitcher knows that a certain type of hitters cannot be fooled on slow stuff.

Perhaps I can show best what I mean by an actual illustration. Earl Combs, the Yankees’ center fielder is a tough man on a slow ball. The pitchers know it. And here’s why.

Earl, though a left handed hitter, hits naturally to left field. Which means that he swings late on the ball. That is, instead of hitting out in front of the plate he hits at the back. Naturally if he has a ball properly timed it will go to left field. Now suppose you throw him a slow one. What happens?

Perhaps he’s expecting a fast one and swings for such a pitch. Instead of hitting to left field, the lack of speed on the ball permits his bat to come further through and he hits to right. But the point is that he isn’t fooled by the slow stuff. He hits it anyway.

When Earl first came into the league a lot of the boys tried pitching slow balls to him. But they have quit it now. It’s too dangerous. Seven times out of ten Earl hits that slow one right on a line through the box and a pitcher has to duck quick or get his head torn off. Back in 1925 when Early was breaking into the league, he sent three pitchers to the hospital in less than a week. He broke Paul Zahniser’s ankle, he cracked Joe Bush’s knee and he smacked Tom Zachary on the wrist. And each time it was a slow ball he hit.

So far as a hitter of the Combs type is concerned a pitcher can use slow stuff for only one thing. That is to make him hit to right field. But you can’t expect to fool him.

With a hitter of my type for instance, it’s quite different. I am a free hitter and I “pull” the ball. In other words I swing fast, with a full, free motion and hit the ball out front. Unless I know a slow ball is coming and time my swing accordingly, I miss the slow one simply because my swing is timed to meet the ball out front and I complete my swing at a slow one before the ball ever reaches me.

All of which, again, is just one of the tricks of the trade that a pitcher learns by experience. And there are hundreds of other little stunts that are part of the pitching profession—stunts that can’t be taught or explained. They’re just little inside pointers that a man must pick up for himself.

But they’re the things that mark the difference between a good pitcher and an average one; between a veteran and a rookie. Perhaps you’ve noticed that our really great pitchers are fellows who have been sticking around for several seasons. A kid may come right up from the sticks and make good as an infielder or an outfielder. A lot of them have done it. Eddie Collins did. So did Frankie Frisch, and George Sisler, and Tony Lazzeri and a half hundred others that you could mention.

But it’s very seldom indeed that a pitcher can do it. Even the Mattys and the Browns, the Pennocks and the Vances and the Alexanders had to stick around for several seasons before they finally came through. And it wasn’t because they didn’t have plenty of stuff, either. It was simply because half of pitching is learning and practicing these little tricks of the business; simply because fifty percent of pitching success is due to pitching knowledge and these things are learned only through long weeks and months of experience.

It’s just as Joe Wood used to say when he was in his prime, “The best curve ball in the world isn’t worth a plugged nickle until you learn what to do with it—and most fellows never do learn. That’s why there aren’t very many good pitchers around loose these days.”

Another thing that the average kid pitcher overlooks is fielding. And fielding is a mighty important part of a pitcher’s business. A pitcher who can’t field bunts and slow rolling balls down the base line won’t last a season in the big leagues. Allan Sothoron is an example of that. When Allan came into the American League he had as much stuff as any pitcher I ever looked at And for a few weeks he went great.

Then one day some smart player tried to bunt on him, and Allan kicked the ball all around the infield trying to pick it up. It wasn’t three days until every club in the league knew about his weakness, and they proceeded to bunt him right back to the minors. He couldn’t field—and three times out of five when a hitter laid one down that Allan had to handle he would either kick the ball around until the runner reached first base, or else in his hurry he’d throw to the stands.

But I’ll say this for Sothoron. He knew his weakness as well as anyone. He went back to the minors and the night he left he came around to say goodbye to his buddies.

“Listen you eggs,” Allan said, “I’ll be back here in a year or two. And when I do I’ll be able to field a ball.”

He made good too. Once he went back to the minors he started to work on fielding. He would get out and handle bunts for hours at a time, and he even changed his whole pitching motion. And a couple of years ago he came back again. His first time out the gang tried the old bunt stuff and Allan handled seven straight bunts without a bobble. After then the fellows knew that their little trick was all up. Allan Sothoron had got wise. He had learned to field.

The best fielding pitcher I ever saw, I think was George Foster of the old Red Sox. George was sure death on any ball hit to his territory. In three seasons I don’t believe I saw him make a single error. He could grab them along the third base line, and he could go over and dig them out at first. More important than that he had a quick underhand throw like an infielder. Urban Shocker is one of the best fielding pitchers of the present day. Eddie Rommell of the Athletics is a fine fielder to. Eddie’s fielding ability comes natural. He loves to play ball and when he’s not pitching he likes to get out and work around the infield. He does a good job of it too.

♦ “Rommell” replaced with “Rommel”

Pitchers who are bad fielders usually can correct their fault by a shift in pitching style. Nine times out of ten they are bad fielders simply because they are off balance when they finish the pitch, and they can’t shift to go after a ball. The important thing to remember is that the body must follow the throw when pitching. Otherwise the pitcher isn’t able to move out of the way of the ball when it’s hit back at him. Now and then of course, a ball is hit back so fast that the pitcher hasn’t time to move. But nine times out of ten it’s the pitcher’s own fault if he is hit by a batted ball. He simply isn’t shifting his feet right.

If you watch a pitcher like Herb Pennock you’ll see that at the finish of his pitch he is balanced forward on his toes, with his weight evenly distributed on both feet. The same motion of his arm that sends the pitch winging across the plate, pulls his body into fielding position without effort. The minute the ball leaves his fingers he is set to field anything that comes his way.

And the result is that when Herb is pitching we have nine fielders out there to stop a batting attack. No one else has to do Pennock’s work. He does it himself. That’s another reason why he’s a great pitcher.