Baseball's Secret Weapon: Terror

No one remembers the place or the names because it happened a long time ago, but in that forgotten spring a rookie pitcher turned to the manager of a big league ball club and asked: "What's the best pitch in baseball? Is it a curve, a fast ball or what?"

"Kid," the manager answered, undisturbed, "the best pitch in baseball is a strike." He waited so that the rookie could grasp a point, put to perfection. Then, very slowly, the manager added, "And the second best pitch is the knockdown."

One reason no one has carved this counsel into marble is that so far no one has had to. The manager's words and sentiments endure, by themselves. Only two weeks ago Jim Bunning, a long-armed Detroit right-hander, knocked down Jim Piersall, a short-tempered Cleveland outfielder, with predictable results. Piersall, hit on the right wrist, arose, marched to the mound and threw a left hook at Bunning. (Since Piersall hooks like Johansson, no one was hurt.) Earlier this season Lou Burdette, Chuck Estrada, Pete Ramos and Mike Fornieles were all threatened by hitters rising from the dirt in fury.

Baseball propagandists, such as league presidents, say that the knockdown is overemphasized in the newspapers; this gives them a chance to get back at the press, which calls them baseball propagandists. Then, lately, there has been a curious tendency to mysticize and romanticize pitching. A pitcher has written a book and mentioned Bartok. A writer has pitched an inning and mentioned himself, along with Mantle and Mays Amateurism flourishes, and one tends to forget that no one hits a home run when he is afraid that the pitcher will throw at his head or at his ribs or at his groin. One tends to forget that, for all its art, major league pitching is largely a business of terror.

Consider a familiar tableau. The batter stands poised, bat cocked, leaning slightly toward the plate, the better to hit the outside curve ball he expects. As the pitcher throws, the batter strides forward. He wants all his weight behind his swing. Then, as he realizes that the ball is hurtling at him, that there will be no swing, the batter comes unhinged. He heaves his bat. His feet fly forward. His body twists down. He needs the ground the way an infantryman needs the ground. He wants to embrace it.

After the ball has passed overhead, the batter lingers in the dirt, breathing and relishing the privilege. When at last he gets up to hit again there is something he must regain, along with his bat and cap—his poise. One more barrier has been erected between the batter and a base hit.

The barrier is older than anyone really knows. Possibly it dates from 1867, the year in which Arthur (Candy) Cummings invented the curve and, presumably, quickly discovered that terror made his new pitch doubly effective. Through the decades the knockdown has gone by different names and, like any weapon, been used in various ways by various men. There are shadings, subtleties and nuances, hypotheses, theories and countertheories, but, primarily, all one needs in preparing A Practical Handbook for Terrifying Batters is a working understanding of three terms.

The BEAN BALL is thrown to hit the batter in the bean, or cranium. It is employed for reasons ranging from dyspepsia to viciousness and is specifically outlawed by Baseball Rule 8.02 (c), which is not to say that it does not exist. Spitballs, as Preacher Roe once pointed out, have been outlawed, too. To throw the classic bean ball, one aims at a point shoulder-high, about a foot behind the batter. As the batter strides he loses height. As he ducks he falls backward, exercising a conditioned reflex. The ball is below and behind the head; the batter falls down and back. Voila.

On August 16, 1920, Ray Chapman, a Cleveland shortstop, was struck near the temple by an underhand fast ball thrown by Carl Mays, who won 26 games for the Yankees that year. People who were there say that Mays's pitch—a "submarine ball" in the post-World War I argot—was only slightly higher than the belt. Chapman dropped into its path. He died the next morning in a New York hospital. A committee of baseball officials later exonerated Mays of any intent to hit Chapman.

The BRUSHBACK is thrown to frighten the batter, to make him step back, with no intent to maim. It is employed routinely as part of a pitcher's assortment, frequently to set up a curve or, for that matter, any outside pitch. Ordinarily, one brushes a hitter by throwing at or close to the front part of his body, from the level of the uniform letters on up. Plate-crowders, such as Minnie Minoso, have some difficulty in dodging brushbacks, but the great majority of big leaguers avoid them simply by leaning back or spinning away from the plate.