Coronado Eagle and Journal, Volume XIV, Number 41, 12 October 1926 — First Curve Ball Ever Pitched Amazed Batters [ARTICLE]

First Curve Ball Ever Pitched Amazed Batters

Candy Cummings, of the old Stars of Brooklyn, is credited *wlth being the first pitcher to release a curve. However, Joseph M. Mann, of Princeton, really did as much as Cummings, probably more, to popularize what was then a “freak" bail. Mann was the first to accomplish a no-hit game, and It was largely through the use of curves that he earned this distinction, Mann, pitching for Princeton, shut out Yale at New Haven, May 29, 1875. So astonished were the Yale players at Mann's ability to curve a ball that they gathered round the plate as the Princeton star fanned out the Ell batters. George Wright, of the old Cincinnati Red Stockings, pulled the first double play. It was in a game against the Atlantic*, of Brooklyn, played on Long Island. In the tenth inning, with a mao on first and second, the batter popped a fly to Wright at short. Instead of catching It, as the runners anticipated, Wright “trapped" the ball by scooping it on the first bound. He then threw It to third, and that baseman, alive to the situation, shot It to second. Two runners were out, and the first double play had been performed.