A Brief History of the Spitball
The Story of the Spitter from Burleigh Grimes to Gaylord Perry
Feb 1, 2009
Prior to 1920, there was no rule that forbid a pitcher from trying to gain an advantage over a batter by wiping a foreign substance on the ball. In the days before the beginning of the Jazz Age, pitchers loaded up baseballs with tobacco juice, pine tar, petroleum jelly and anything else they thought might make their curveball break a little bigger, or encourage the sinker to drop a little faster. The most commonly used stuff was plain old spit, and thus the art of doctoring up a baseball soon came to be known as "throwing a spitball."
Ed Walsh was the First Master of the Spitball
Historians of the game are unsure as to when the first spitter was thrown, or by whom it was thrown. But they do agree that the pitch's undisputed master in the twentieth century was Ed Walsh, who averaged 24 wins and an ERA under 2.00, primarily on the strength of his spitball. His success led many others to follow suit, and by the teens, the spitter was almost as common as the curveball.
Most hitters didn’t like it. They felt that pitchers had so many inherent advantages that allowing them to goop up baseballs to get even more movement only added insult to injury. Looking at the paltry offensive numbers posted by both leagues during the teens, one can sympathize with hitters. But their complaints usually met with deaf ears.
There were also safety concerns. Since many pitchers used pine tar or tobacco juice mixed with dirt to load up, in time the ball went from a pristine white with red laces to a mud brown with muddier brown laces. Hitters complained that they couldn’t see the ball. Many even blamed the death of Ray Chapman, who died after being beaned in the head by Carl Mays, on the fact that the ball that killed him was covered in spit, dirt, and tobacco juice.
Faced with these concerns, the owners voted to outlaw the spitter in 1920. No longer could a pitcher doctor up a baseball for any reason. There was, however, one noteworthy caveat to this proclamation. Those pitchers who already used the spitball would be grandfathered in, which meant that seventeen guys were allowed to keep spitballin’ for the rest of their careers.
Among the seventeen pitchers granted this exemption were some of the finest hurlers of the day, including Burleigh Grimes, Red Faber, Stan Coevleski, Jack Quinn and Urban Shocker. But of the seventeen “grandfathered” players, Grimes was clearly the most fortunate beneficiary. He played another 14 seasons in the big leagues, hurling his goopy spitball the whole time, on the way to 270 career wins, four National League pennants, the 1931 World Series title and, in 1964, induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Illegal Spitballers and Mound Doctors
When he retired after the 1934 season, Grimes was the last man to legally throw a spitball in major league history. Well, he may have been the last guy to do it legally, but he surely wasn’t the last one to do it. No, not at all. Through the years, many pitchers (including several great ones) have either been suspected of throwing a doctored baseball or been caught in the act.
The most famous the post-1934 spitball pitchers is Gaylord Perry. In the course of a 22-year career, Perry won 314 games, two Cy Young Awards, and, in 1991, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And he threw a spitter.
In his autobiography, Me and the Splitter, An Autobiographical Confession, Perry acknowledged that he threw the spitball, or more accurately, something he called the "greaseball." Perry wrote that he used everything from Vaseline to Preparation H to KY Jelly in order to grease up the baseball. “I'd always have it (grease) in at least two places, in case the umpires would ask me to wipe one off. I never wanted to be caught out there with anything though, it wouldn't be professional."
When he retired, Perry joked with reporters: “the league is going to be a lot drier now.”
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