"Gaylord Perry, two-time Cy Young winner, dies at 84".
Perry said he first threw it [the spitball] in May 1964 against the New York Mets, pitched 10 innings without giving up a run and soon after entered the Giants' starting rotation.
He also wrote in the book that he chewed slippery elm bark to build up his saliva, and eventually stopped throwing the pitch in 1968 after MLB ruled pitchers could no longer touch their fingers to their mouths before touching the baseball.
According to his book, he looked for other substances, like petroleum jelly, to doctor the baseball. He used various motions and routines to touch different parts of his jersey and body to get hitters thinking he was applying a foreign substance.
That's m'boy! I'm sure he had some Paco in him.
RIP, brother.
He and Livan Hernandez were my favorite pitchers.
ReplyDeleteThey threw junk, didn't care what people said about them and pitched for a long time.
They also laughed at all the people who whined about the spitter.
Although.... Why he needed the spitter against the 64 Mets is a mystery.