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Show oo TRICKS OF THE BIG LEAGUE PITCHERS Tn the April Woman's Homo Companion Com-panion is an article on pitching baseball base-ball curves by C H. Claudy. In It he says: "Few big league pitchers depend on many varieties of curve to 'fool' tho batter. No matter what the effect of a wide and sweeping curve may bo upon one of your team mates, a curve ball in the big league is as easy to hit as a straight one, provided the batter bat-ter knows It Ib coming. But a good pitcher gets to 'work' on a batter, ho doosn't lot him know what Is coming. With three balls and two strikes almost al-most any major leaguo batter Is entitled en-titled to believo that tho next pitch will bo a 'fast one splitting the Plato.' But If the pitcher has his nerve with him, it may be a sudden Inshoot. Expecting the natural straight ball, and finding, about a tenth of a second before tho ball gets to tho late, that It Is Jumping In toward to-ward him. the batter has no time to change his 'sot,' and strikes out. "The essence of any 'fooling delivery, de-livery, then. Is Its unexpectedness. To mako use of this feature, control of the 'fooling delivery Is necessary. "And tho easiest curve to control Is the curvo which Is pitched moBt naturally. nat-urally. "That is why the big league pitcher doesn't try to master tho curves of every other pitcher, but sticks to thoso he can do best. The greatest pltchor ot tho game Is famous for his 'fade-away,' the ball that withers and dies at tho plato after starting like a cannon ball. But or every ' fado- away' Malty ever threw, he pitched a dozen straight fast or slow balls. "And they all como from the same motion. No batter can tell by looking look-ing at Matty getting ready, winding up, and pitching, what Is going to 'come up to him. It is not knowing until the last fraction of a second whether tho ball will go waist high, plump into the catcher's mitt, or I weakly drop off to ono side, which i ' j makes the 'fadeaway a terror." oo ' il Tho sphinx pronounced a riddle. ,' . I "How many girls would swim out j beyond the danger line if the life- ,' j guard was a woman?" she asked. J j New York Sun. j j . - II i II |