OCR Text |
Show TALL PITCHER SHIFTS STYLE Ehmke's Underhand Delivery Deliv-ery Lacks Zip of His Side Arm Motion Is it a wise move for a pitcher, who has won success as a big leaguer with a certain style of pitching, to sir. ." to another delivery? That in a sentence tells the stoiy Of the career of Pitrncr Howard Bhmke of the Detroit club. IS h mke came to the American league lea-gue a side-arm pitch.-, much after he Style of O rover Alexander or Walter Johnson. His fast ball, delivered with aj sweeping sde-arm nioton, had a break I on it that made it almost unhlttablf. Inside of u year Bhmke was one of the most talked about pitchers in the Am-erican Am-erican league, particularly from the players' standpoint. Nine out of every ten players In 'the American league disliked to hit agalnft BhmkC when US was using the side-arin delivery Certainly there could be no beter testimony to the I effectiveness of such H style, i Before the start oi a game Bhmke had the edge because' players dl6-1 dl6-1 1 K ' I ves even feared, to hit against his fast ball. Under Cobb taut year Ehmke's success was Just so-so Any number of reasons could be offered for his failure to win consistently. Perhaps the best reason was that he had an erratic club back of hlrn. This .season Bhraku Ib using an entirely different style He has gotten got-ten away from the side-arm delivery almost entirely il- is delivering the ball from a point ;;!oiii on the level with his knees much after the manner man-ner of Carl Mays. The now delivery Is rather puzzling puz-zling because Bhmke Is such a tall pitcher. The underhand delivery, however, seems to have robbed Ehmke's fust ball of much of its "zip " It will be a rather interesting experiment ex-periment to watch, that of a star pitcher changing his entire style after becoming an established big leaguer. |