Editing Curveball (section)

==History==
[[Candy Cummings]], a star pitcher in the 1860s and 1870s, is widely credited with inventing the curveball. In his biography of Cummings, Stephen Katz provides proof.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Katz |first=Stephen |title=Candy Cummings: The Life and Career of the Inventor of the Curveball |publisher=McFarland & Co. |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-4766-8037-8 |location=Jefferson, NC |pages=26–28, 57–77}}</ref>  Several other pitchers of Cummings' era claimed to have invented the curveball. One was Fred Goldsmith. Goldsmith maintained that he gave a demonstration of the pitch on August 16, 1870, at the [[Capitoline Grounds]] in [[Brooklyn]], [[New York (state)|New York]], and that renowned sportswriter [[Henry Chadwick (writer)|Henry Chadwick]] had covered it in the ''[[Brooklyn Eagle]]'' on August 17, 1870. However, Stephen Katz, in his biography of Cummings, shows that Goldsmith's claim was not credible, and that Goldsmith's reference to an article by Chadwick in the ''Brooklyn Eagle'' was likely fabricated.<ref>{{cite book | last=Katz | first=Stephen Robert | title=Candy Cummings | publisher=McFarland | date=2022-03-31 | isbn=978-1-4766-8037-8 | pages = 71–76}}</ref> Other claimants to invention of the curveball are shown by Katz to have gotten the curveball only after Cummings, or not to have been pitching curveballs.<ref name="1869chrono">{{Cite book |last=Katz |first=Stephen |title=Candy Cummings: The Life and Career of the Inventor of the Curveball |publisher=McFarland & Co. |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-4766-8037-8 |location=Jefferson, NC |pages=57–71}}</ref> 

[[John Thorn]], the Official Baseball Historian of [[Major League Baseball]],<ref name=MLB>{{cite web|title=John Thorn Named Official Baseball Historian |url=http://www.mlb.com/content/printer_friendly/mlb/y2011/m03/d01/c16776310.jsp |date=March 1, 2011 |website=[[Major League Baseball|MLB.com]]}}</ref> credits [[Joseph McElroy Mann]] of [[Princeton University]] as the first known college baseball player to master the curveball.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/baseball-at-princeton-and-more-about-mann-and-the-curve-501b668ea6a7|first=John|last=Thorn|date=January 2, 2018|title=Baseball at Princeton; and More about Mann and the Curve}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/curve-pitching-at-princeton-c78da531f54|first=John|last=Thorn|title=Curve Pitching at Princeton|date=Jan 1, 2018}}</ref> About 1872, another [[Princeton University|Princeton]] man, James Winthrop Hageman, of the class of 1872, was reputed to be a curve ball pitcher, but it was his change of pace that fooled the batsmen. It was not until “Mac” Mann made a scientific study of the art that players began to realize its full value. “The fact that so many professionals seemed ignorant of curve pitching and hurried to see Mann proves conclusively that the Princetonian was the first to use the curve with any judgment and control over the ball.” Mann is also credited with pitching the first no-run, no-hit game in the annals of baseball.

In 1876, the second known collegiate baseball player to perfect the curveball was [[Clarence Emir Allen]] of Western Reserve College, now known as [[Case Western Reserve University]], where he never lost a game.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CdyMqAs9Cm4C&q=%22Clarence+Emir+Allen%22+baseball&pg=PA75|title=Base Ball on the Western Reserve: The Early Game in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, Year by Year and Town by Town, 1865-1900|first=James M. Jr.|last=Egan|date=21 May 2008|publisher=McFarland|access-date=9 May 2018|via=Google Books|isbn=9780786430673}}</ref>  Both Allen, and teammate pitcher John P. Barden, became famous for employing the curve in the late 1870s.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dks.library.kent.edu/cgi-bin/kentstate?a=d&d=tks19270428-01.2.32|title=The Kent Stater 28 April 1927 — Kent State University|website=dks.library.kent.edu|access-date=9 May 2018}}</ref>  In the early 1880s, [[Clinton Scollard]] (1860–1932), a pitcher from [[Hamilton College (New York)|Hamilton College]] in New York, became famous for his curve ball and later earned fame as a prolific American poet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://faculty.uscupstate.edu/jpellegrino/articles/scollardencyclopediaarticle.htm |title=Clinton Scollard |access-date=2013-03-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224055757/http://faculty.uscupstate.edu/jpellegrino/articles/scollardencyclopediaarticle.htm |archive-date=2014-02-24 }}</ref> In 1885, [[St. Nicholas Magazine|''St. Nicholas'', a children's magazine]], featured a story entitled, "How Science Won the Game". It told of how a boy pitcher mastered the curveball to defeat the opposing batters.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dBEbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA924|title=St. Nicholas|date=9 May 1885|publisher=Scribner & Company|access-date=9 May 2018|via=Google Books}}</ref>

The ''[[New York Clipper]]'' reported, of a September 26, 1863, game at [[Princeton University]] (then the College of New Jersey), that F. P. Henry's "slow pitching with a great twist to the ball achieved a victory over fast pitching." However, Katz, in his biography of Cummings, explains that Henry was not actually pitching curveballs.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Katz |first=Stephen |title=Candy Cummings: The Life and Career of the Inventor of the Curveball |publisher=McFarland & Co. |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-4766-8037-8 |pages=69, 206n80}}</ref>

[[Harvard University|Harvard]] president [[Charles William Eliot|Charles Eliot]] was among those opposed to the curve, claiming it was a dishonest practice unworthy of Harvard students.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/04/eliot-house/|title=A look inside: Eliot House|website=[[Harvard Gazette]] |access-date=14 October 2015|date=2012-04-19}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/11/7/throwback-thursday-baseball/|title=Throwback Thursday |website=[[Harvard Crimson]]  | author=Kiara F. Z. Barrow | date=7 November 2013 |access-date=9 May 2018}}</ref> At an athletics conference at Yale University in 1884 a speaker (thought to be from Harvard, likely Charles Eliot Norton, a cousin of the Harvard president<ref>{{cite web |last1=Herschberger |first1=Richard |title=With a Deliberate Attempt to Deceive |url=https://sabr.org/journal/article/with-a-deliberate-attempt-to-deceive-correcting-a-quotation-misattributed-to-charles-eliot-president-of-harvard/ |website=SABR - Society for American Baseball Research |publisher=Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2017 |access-date=30 July 2023 |ref=sabr.org}}</ref>) was reported to have stated: "For the pitcher, instead of delivering the ball to the batter in an honest, straightforward way, that the latter may exert his strength to the best advantage in knocking it, now uses every effort to deceive him by curving—I think that is the word—the ball. And this is looked upon as the last triumph of athletic science and skill. I tell you it is time to call halt! when the boasted progress in athletics is in the direction of fraud and deceit."<ref>{{cite news |title=Give the Batsman a Chance |url=https://sabr.org/journal/article/with-a-deliberate-attempt-to-deceive-correcting-a-quotation-misattributed-to-charles-eliot-president-of-harvard/#sdendnote2sym |access-date=30 July 2023|work=New York Clipper - cited in the Herschberger article cited above. |volume=XXXI|issue=44, Column 3 |publisher=New York Clipper |date=January 19, 1884}}</ref>

In the past, major league pitchers [[Tommy Bridges]], [[Bob Feller]], [[Virgil Trucks]], [[Herb Score]], [[Camilo Pascual]], [[Sandy Koufax]], [[Bert Blyleven]], and the aforementioned [[Dwight Gooden]] were regarded as having outstanding curveballs.