peashooter85:A day that changed baseball forever,During the early years of the Major League, basebal

peashooter85:A day that changed baseball forever,During the early years of the Major League, baseball was an inside game, meaning that most of the action took place inside the bases.  Home runs were rare relative to today, and the game focused on scoring solid singles, doubles, steals, line drives, bunts, and advancing bases.  It was a pitchers game, with pitchers having a distinct advantage over batters.  The greatest advantage pitchers had was the spitball, a term that was named after its methodology.  In a sport notorious for player chewing tobacco, a pitcher would often spit tobacco juice on the ball, darkening it and making it much harder to see while being pitched. The common school boy shenanigan “spitball” today takes its name from this practice.  A pitcher may also coat it in mud or grease, sometimes Vaseline, increasing the chance that a glancing hit will result in a fowl ball.  Typically during a game, a baseball would be used until it was generally considered unusable.  After a few innings a ball might begin to warp, changing its flight characteristics and making pitches more unpredictable.  Pitchers also used a technique called a cut ball, where they would physically deform a ball to create similar effects.On August 16th 1920, the Indians were playing against the Yankees and Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman was at the bat against the notorious spitball pitcher Carl Mays.  On the first pitch Mays threw a submarine pitch which slammed against Chapman’s skull.  The sound of the ball striking Chapman’s head made a loud cracking noise and the ball actually bounced back towards the pitchers mound, causing Mays to believe Chapman had made a hit causing him to field the ball and throw it to first base.  Chapman collapsed on home plate and began convulsing, blood was pouring from his eyes, ears, and nose.  He was taken to a New York City hospital where he died 12 hours later from a fractured skull and brain hemorrhaging. Before the accident federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed Commisioner of Baseball in response to the “Black Sox incident of 1919”.  A man with unlimited authority and an iron hand, Landis immediately moved to ban the spitwad.  Spitwad pitching had already been restricted before, allowing a team only two designated spitwad pitchers.  This time spitwad pitching was totally banned with the exception of 17 players who were grandfathered in.  Other rules were adopted governing ball use.  Umpires were required to remove balls from play that were stained or deformed.  In the 1950’s, players would also be required to wear batting helmets.Never before or since had a rule change made such a profound impact on the nature of the game.  Whereas before baseball was a pitchers game, the sport quickly morphed into a batters game.  During the 1920 season Babe Ruth, “The Sultan of Swat” hit 54 home runs, more than many teams hit in a single season.  The next year he hit 59.  Succeeding players such as Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio would forever revolutionize the batters role in offensive play. The game had become a sluggers paradise. -- source link

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