Clipping:A call for the return of straight arm pitching
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| Date | Sunday, August 15, 1880 |
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| Text | [from a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald] Will you permit an old lover of the National sport, and one of the original founders of the Boston Base Ball Association to make a suggestion? I havee found of late that, although my interest in the game could not be lessening, as I was still possessed of the same eagerness to read in your columns the reports of the various league matches as also to scan the details of the fielding and batting of the Bostons, yet when I attended a match I would become wearied as at a dull play at the theater, and although the Bostons would be playing what might be called a good game, yet I could not “enthuse” at all. If ind that I am not alone in this feeling, and it is growing on the “veteran” patrons of the game, as shown in the decreasing attendance. Now this is all accounted for in the fact that the game itself has changed. … ...the change made from the old style of delivery of the ball at base ball. When the ball was fairly pitched, and not thrown, and delivered below the waist at straight arm, good pitchers were scarce, but since underhand throwing has been in vogue good deliveries of the ball—not pitchers—are plenty. Underhand throwing, from one having good command of the ball, can not be batted successfully, if he is properly supported. Consequently the balls from the bat do not come hard to the fielders and the records of games show less than five errors to a club and less than ten runs in all. But is the game any shorter, so that the spectator may not be wearied? One would naturally suppose that, in a game where only seven runs are made, under the new style of playing, the game would take less time than in the old style of game, where double the number of runs were scored. But such is not the fact. The writer being an unfortunate suburban is obliged to leave the grounds at 5:30, and on Friday at the same time six innings had been played. Now for the remedy. The spectators would rather see good batting that good fielding, and there was more enjoyment in the old Harvard and Lowell matches of 30 run on a side than in all of the present 3 to 0 contests. Go back, gentlemen managers of the League, to the old base ball game, with straight-arm pitching, and abolish the rule allowing the pitcher to deliver 11 balls to each batsman. Let six bad balls at the most, give a batsman a base, and stop the warning of “good ball” after two strikes. This will make the pitcher sharper in his deliver, the batsman more eager to strike the batting heavier, and the game ll the more interesting and the patronage consequently better. Cincinnati Commercial August 15, 1880 George Wright has been recently interviewed, and expressed himself strongly in favor of a return to the old style of straight-arm pitching, adding that with the present curved underhand throwing a base hit is only made by chance. It is his opinion that Corcoran, Will White, Ward and McCormick throw the ball almost from the shoulder, and should be ruled out. Cincinnati Commercial September 5, 1880 |
| Source | Cincinnati Commercial Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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