Word: spitters
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American politics and government are particularly vulnerable to Rogers' kind of humor. Politicians who parade as national leaders look silly when you notice their common imperfections. Rogers described Calvin Coolidge's stiff-lipped way of talking: "Coolidge is what we call at home a close chewer and a tight spitter." But he did not limit his jokes to personal failings; he also knocked irresponsible government policies and actions. The moral self-righteousness with which we infuse our policies seems absurd against the hard truths of government inefficiency and immorality. Rogers used this contrast as a major source of his biting...
...points out: "You've got to have good jaw muscles." George polished his skills hitting moving targets like chickens and cats as a farm boy; he chews only Apple Sun Cured. "My mother could hit the fireplace from anywhere in the living room," he recalls. "A spitter's greatest joy lies in hitting the moving target, preferably cats, chickens or snakes. You ought to see a cat run when you spit in his eye." Today he is semiretired, but his presence at the contest is something akin to Jack Dempsey ringside at a heavyweight title bout...
Having gone expansionist, the big-league bosses went antiseptic by cracking down on the illegal but ubiquitous spitball-to the point where a pitcher can't even pick his teeth without being bounced out of the ball game. And if the loss of the good old spitter wasn't enough, the owners also decided to dispense with most of those endearing little rituals that give the game color. In the interest of speeding things up, no longer may a pitcher stand out there shaking off catcher's sign after sign while tension mounts; no longer will...
...inches more than normal) that pitchers can achieve by wetting the ball. And for a while, most pitchers did seem to abide by the edict. But charity has its limits. Experts estimate that today, anywhere from 25% to 50% of all big-league pitchers throw the spitter, and that number includes many of the biggest names in the game...
...Locker. And the Mets' Koonce asks: "Why shouldn't I say I throw one? A lot of guys know I do." Including, of course, the umpires, who rarely enforce Rule 8.02-because, they claim, it is unenforceable. "You may know a pitch was a spitter-but how do you prove it?" shrugs Cal Hubbard, the American League's supervisor of umpires, and one of his subordinates says: "We don't bother the pitchers as long as they don't embarrass...