Find out about the man who invented the curveball

There’s one pitcher in the Baseball Hall of Fame who, based on his 145-94 record pitching in the 1870s, doesn’t appear to deserve to be there. William Arthur “Candy” Cummings was named to the Pioneers Department in 1939 not for his record, but in recognition of his invention of the curveball.

Born in Ware, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1848, Cummings grew up at a time when pitchers delivered the ball underhand. He was a slender, wiry young man, never topping 5’9” and 120 pounds, with unusually long, slender arms that he would snap like a whip. He moved to Brooklyn as a teenager and it was there that he set about developing the “outcurve,” as it was first called.

There have been many versions of how and when he discovered – or invented – the pitch. In the following letter, written in 1896 at 26 Pleasant Street, Brooklyn, he set the record straight:

“You want to know how I discovered the curve and if it was accidental. Well, I will tell you just how I got it. In regard to its being an accident, it was not. But it was hard work and studying out a theory I had.

“Possibly you have thrown clam shells and have seen how they would sail through the air then turn, whether to the right or left, as the wind happened to strike them. A number of my chums and I were throwing shells one day in Brooklyn. When seeing a shell take a wide curve I said, ‘Now, if I could only make the ball do that I think the other clubs won’t be in it.’ There was immediately a discussion on the art and possibilities of curving the ball, all hands insisting it was an impossible thing. I took the opposite side of the question and said it could be done. I told them I was going to do it if it took me ten years. This was in ’64 when I was in my 16th year.

“I commenced thinking and puzzling my brain as to how I was to accomplish it, and it was a constant study and lots of hard work .It was very discouraging too, I can assure you. At times I would think I had it, and the boys would get behind my catcher and sometimes they would think they saw it and others would say that it came straight.  They chaffed me so much I decided to say nothing to them but worked quietly until I got it. I went back to boarding school that fall and every minute I had away from study and recitations I put to pitching. Still I was not sure of it. After I left school in the fall of ’65 I still kept up working on the one thing. In the meantime I found I could pitch a raise or a drop ball and felt quite encouraged, and I determined to stick to it until I got it.

“In the summer of ’66 I joined the Excelsior club of Brooklyn as a junior member and pitching for the second nine, pitching a few games on the first nine and won them, much to the surprise of our opponents. In the fall of ’66 or ’67, I’m not positive which, we went to Boston to play the Lowells, Tri-Mountains and Harvards, and I then found that I had got what I had been working for. While we were playing the Harvards, I pitched a ball at Archie Bush, and I thought he would bat it out of sight, when, as he struck at the ball, it seemed to go about a foot beyond the end of his bat. I tried again with the same result, and I was then sure I had the curve and have been able to hold onto it ever since.

“It was no easy job for a pitcher to deliver a ball in those days, as he had to keep both feet on the ground and not raise either until after the ball left his hand, and had to keep his arm close to his side and deliver the ball with a perpendicular swing. I think if some of the boys tried it they would find it a difficult thing to do, and you must make your wrist and second finger do all the work. It is very trying to the wrist, as the snap you give the ball, similar to snapping a whip, has a tendency to throw your wrist bone out of place, as I have done mine hundreds of times. In 1874 in Philadelphia my wrist bone was out so I had to wear a rubber supporter all that season.” /s/ W. A. Cummings.

A graceful, confident player, Cummings was known as a boy wonder among amateur baseball circles, and a nemesis to the heavy hitters of the time.  He won 16 and lost 8 for Hartford in the National League in 1876, and was 5-14 for Cincinnati in ’77. Cummings was also the first pitcher to use the inshoot, the raise, the drop and the double curve – the snake ball that curved almost to the plate, then broke sharply the other way. He was always willing to teach others how to curve the ball, and worked with pitchers at Princeton and Yale in the 1870s. One of his students was Joseph McElroy Mann, who used the curve while pitching the first recorded no-hitter, pitching for Princeton against Yale at New Haven on May 29, 1875.

Cummings owned a paint and hardware store in Atholl, Massachusetts, when his playing days were over, and returned to Brooklyn when his wife died in 1895. He died on May 16, 1924, in Toledo, Ohio.