Back in the day it was every player’s job to dirty up the baseball. It would be smeared with dirt, liquorice, or tobacco juice; it was deliberately scuffed, sandpapered, scarred, cut, even spiked.
The result was a misshapen, earth-coloured ball that traveled through the air erratically, and as it came over the plate, was very hard to see.
The result was a misshapen, earth-coloured ball that traveled through the air erratically, and as it came over the plate, was very hard to see.
No one thought much about this until 1920 - more than two decades before teams started wearing helmets - when a batter named Ray Chapman was fatally hit by a pitch that he barely saw. Soon after, umpires were instructed to keep new, clean balls in play.
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball, an Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1994) p 153.
