Word: spitter
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Some opponents insist that Fowler's pitchers are using more than sunflower seeds. Oakland, it has been widely charged, has become the home of the spitball. Fowler insists that he merely teaches his charges to throw the "dry spitter," a sinker that behaves just like the genuine article. Whatever it is, the A's pitchers do not yield threatening clouts very often. When they do, the fleetest outfield in baseball (and one of the heaviest-hitting) goes to work. Leftfielder Rickey Henderson (.348, 19 runs scored and ten steals), Centerfielder Dwayne Murphy (.280, 20 RBIs) and Rightfielder Tony...
Heavy Hitter. To beef up his goofball outfit, Buttermaker recruits a couple of sawed-off powerhouses. Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O'Neal), the tomboy daughter of an old flame of Buttermaker's, is expert in the fine art of the fastball and the spitter; Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), a local terror who chain smokes and rides a Harley, is a heavy hitter. He also has the hots for Amanda. With Kelly and Amanda on the team, the Bears start...
...arranged a special demonstration for senior umpires to prove that his "great stuff' was greaseless. What the umps saw, or thought they saw, was a delivery with the first and second ringers gripping the sides rather than the top of the ball. "They agreed it was not a spitter," Perry reported. "One umpire even complimented me." Since then, Forkballer Perry has been the toughest pitcher in baseball, winning thirteen consecutive games while compiling a miserly ERA of 1.22. Boasts Perry: "I don't need the spitter any more...
...Chicago White Sox Star Dick Allen declared, "He's still got it. I don't think he can win big without it." Billy Martin, the Texas Rangers' feisty manager, says, "I don't know anything about Perry's forkball, but he still throws a spitter." In a book about his experiences with the spitter, Perry himself concedes that when he greases the ball just right, it "looks like a forkball." His techniques are so refined by now, though, that it is doubtful anyone could tell for sure. He certainly will not face the kind...
...Perry of the Cleveland Indians was confessing. To the surprise of no American League batter, last year's Cy Young Award winner was making a clean breast of the spitball he threw "for the first, but hardly the last time" in 1964. In his autobiography, Me and the Spitter, to be published next year, Perry said that first spitball led him through "the mudball, the emery ball, the K-Y ball, the Vaselineball and the sweatball, to name a few. During the next eight years, I tried everything on the old apple but salt and pepper and chocolate-sauce...