"The Spitball Knuckleball Book"

reveals how outlawing the spitball brought on the knuckleball and how these pitches are gripped and thrown.

Here you will find:
* How the spitball was discovered.
* Photographs showing how it was taught by the master spitballers.
* Why the spitball was outlawed in 1920 --it had little to do with safety and everything to do with attendance.
* The 23 pitchers allowed to continue throwing the spitball for the 1920 season and finally allowed to throw it until they retired.
* The ten best illegal spitballers.
* The dry spitter--the perfectly legal pitch that breaks just like a spitball.
* The ten successful Major Leaguers who threw the dry spitter.
* Photographs and descriptions of how the dry spitter was gripped and thrown.
* How a young spitballer not put on the exempt list for 1920 learned the fingertip knuckleball from his plumber friend and took it to the Majors, where it is still used today.
* The often bumpy careers of more than two dozen knuckleballers with photographs of most of their grips.

   The Spitball/Knuckleball Book: How they are thrown, those who threw them by Tom E. Mahl. Elyria, Ohio: Trick Pitch Press, 2009, 256 pp. Bibliography, index, 256 photographs, $32.95, TPPBooks.com

 View The index

The spitball is one of the most difficult pitches to hit. Consequently, it has been illegal since 1920.The spitball was outlawed not because it was unsanitary or dangerous. It was outlawed because Babe Ruth’s 29 home runs in 1919 had drawn huge crowds. Perhaps if the pitchers were deprived of their trick pitches, Ruth and other sluggers could do even better and draw even bigger crowds.

The Spitball/Knuckleball Book follows the careers of the 23 allowed to continue throwing the spitball for the 1920 season and the 17 survivors of that season who were allowed to continue until they retired. It also follows the careers of “The Great Illegals,” 14 pitchers, such as Gaylord Perry and Bob Shaw, who threw the spitball illegally.

Here for the first time in any baseball book are photographs of the grips and a clear description of the dry spitter as thrown by ten Major Leaguers including a Hall of Famer. This is the only book in print showing how the spitball and the dry spitter are gripped and thrown.

One consequence of outlawing the trick pitches was the development of the modern knuckleball by Eddie Rommel. There are informative profiles of 28 prominent practitioners of the knuckleball along with nearly 30 large photographs and drawing of their grips.