On this date in 1919, the spitball was banned. Well not exactly banned. Each team was allowed to designate two pitchers who could use the pitch during the 1920 season. Following the 1920 season new pitchers were banned from throwing the pitch but existing spitballers were allowed to continue doctoring the ball until they retired.

Which brings us to The Brothers K by David James Duncan. Now we don’t ususally get all literary on you here but, if you like baseball and good literature, you’ll love this book. It’s got a kid coming of age, family crises, the Viet Nam war and much more but most importantly it has BASEBALL. Which bring us back to the spitball. In one of the most hilarious passages I have ever read, the author describes a fictional radio broadcast by Dizzy Dean. Ol’ Diz gets to reminiscing about the time he developed a bad cold while pitching for the Cardinals and “inadvertantly” began throwing a nasally derived variation of the spitter. The umpire got suspicious and, in spite of Dean’s attempts to blame it on the outfield grass and an infield infestation of snails, Dizzy was ejected.

That story alone is worth the the price of a hardback, so buy the book and you can consider the other 640 pages a bonus.

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