The Invisible Man On The Mound

In 1958 Hall developed hepatitis and sat out the season, which seemed to be all that he really needed—a nice long rest—for in 1959, a pitcher all the way now, he led the Pacific Coast League in victories, winning percentage and earned-run average and came back to the majors to stay.

Hall has one of the strangest and least attractive pitching motions in the major leagues, a curious tangle and twist that ends with an abrupt little flip of the arm. He looks awful when he pitches, but he is an effective competitor. Out of uniform, mild, quiet, diffident, balding, he looks and acts more like an instructor in qualitative analysis than an athlete. Last winter he gave a lecture for the Enoch Pratt Free Public Library in Baltimore on the subject of baseball and literature. He has three small daughters. His favorite magazine is Scientific American. He collects stamps and likes to take his collection along on road trips to work on it during his off-hours. When he was ill in 1958 he began to study accounting, and he works now in the off-season as a public accountant with a leading Baltimore firm.

Dick Hall is nothing at all like Bo Belinsky. A better pitcher, maybe, but then who ever heard of Dick Hall?