Joseph Henry Lake (January 6, 1881 – June 30, 1950) was a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

from 1908 to 1913. He played for the

New York Highlanders The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one o ...

St. Louis Browns The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they p ...

, and Detroit Tigers. Lake made his major league debut on April 21, 1908; his final game was five years later on August 25, 1913. Lake's key pitches were the

spitball A spitball is an illegal baseball pitch in which the ball has been altered by the application of a foreign substance such as saliva or petroleum jelly. This technique alters the wind resistance and weight on one side of the ball, causing it to m ...

and the

fastball The fastball is the most common type of pitch thrown by pitchers in baseball and softball. " Power pitchers," such as former American major leaguers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, rely on speed to prevent the ball from being hit, and have thr ...

.James, Bill and Neyer, Rob.
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers
' (Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 273.

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1881 births 1950 deaths Major League Baseball pitchers New York Highlanders players St. Louis Browns players Detroit Tigers players Baseball players from New York (state) Sportspeople from Brooklyn Baseball players from New York City Newburgh Hill Climbers players Jersey City Skeeters players Minneapolis Millers (baseball) players Peekskill Highlanders players Burials at St. John's Cemetery (Queens) {{US-baseball-pitcher-1880s-stub