Topic summary
Curve ball
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Curveball.
History
John Thorn, the Official Baseball Historian of Major League Baseball, credits Joseph McElroy Mann of Princeton University as the first known college baseball player to master the curveball. About 1872, another Princeton man, James Winthrop Hageman, of the class of 1872, was reputed to be a curve ball pitcher, but it was his change of pace that fooled the batsmen. It was not until "Mac" Mann made a scientific study of the art that players began to realize its full value. "The fact that so many professionals seemed ignorant of curve pitching and hurried to see Mann proves conclusively that the Princetonian was the first to use the curve with any judgment and control over the ball". Mann is also credited with pitching the first no-run, no-hit game in the annals of baseball.