Word: spitter
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Having gone expansionist, the big-league bosses went antiseptic by cracking down on the illegal but ubiquitous spitball-to the point where a pitcher can't even pick his teeth without being bounced out of the ball game. And if the loss of the good old spitter wasn't enough, the owners also decided to dispense with most of those endearing little rituals that give the game color. In the interest of speeding things up, no longer may a pitcher stand out there shaking off catcher's sign after sign while tension mounts; no longer will...
...such problem. He clearly recalls throwing his last spitball to Johnny Callison of the Philadelphia Phillies, who grounded into a force play. Koonce's memory may be due to the fact that he is only 26, still pitches for the New York Mets-and threw his last spitter just the other...
...inches more than normal) that pitchers can achieve by wetting the ball. And for a while, most pitchers did seem to abide by the edict. But charity has its limits. Experts estimate that today, anywhere from 25% to 50% of all big-league pitchers throw the spitter, and that number includes many of the biggest names in the game...
...Locker. And the Mets' Koonce asks: "Why shouldn't I say I throw one? A lot of guys know I do." Including, of course, the umpires, who rarely enforce Rule 8.02-because, they claim, it is unenforceable. "You may know a pitch was a spitter-but how do you prove it?" shrugs Cal Hubbard, the American League's supervisor of umpires, and one of his subordinates says: "We don't bother the pitchers as long as they don't embarrass...
...find out I'm slower too." Because Sam's "hummer" breaks sharply-down instead of up-he has also been accused of throwing an illegal spitball. Not so, says McDowell: "I wouldn't know how. But if people want to think I'm throwing a spitter, that's fine with me. It'll keep them guessing up there, and that's what my job is all about...