should impart to it a rotation whose axis would lie in the zenith and nadir like a spinning top, such a ball, because the friction is greater against the compressed than the rarified air, will 'curve' either to the right or left, depending in which direction it rotates. If it rotates from the north, through the east to the south, which is the direction a right hand pitcher would most easily give it, it would curve to the left, and vice versa. If any one believes that the cause assigned is inadequate to produce the observed effect, let him imagine experiment No. 3 to be performed in a dense medium—water for example, and I think he will be convinced that a ball can be curved, but if he still doubts it, let him suppose the ball to be a croquet ball driven full of long, projecting spikes, and sent rapidly through the water, rotating as it goes. It would be the very essence of folly, and at variance with every principle of philosophy, to contend that it would move in a straight line.'"
The foregoing is only interesting from historical and scientific standpoints, since every careful observer in the grandstand, behind the batsman, is able clearly to note the very wide deflection given the ball by modern pitchers of every league.
Other deceptive deliveries than the "curved ball," with its in-curves, its out-shoots, its rise and drop, are later innovations. The "spit-ball," of which more was heard a few years ago than now, is one, and the "fade away," with a line of motion like that described by the undulations of a snake while crawling, is used by Christy Mathewson and a few others, I believe.
The removal of the straight-arm pitching restriction, by the amendment of the rules in 1884, was responsible for the evolution of the "Phenom." He came into the game from Keokuk, Kankakee, Kokomo and Kalamazoo. He was heralded always as a "discovery." His achievements were "simply phenomenal." Once in a great while he "made good." Usually he proved to be a flat and unmitigated failure. The trying-out of these wonders
