FASTEST FOR ONE PITCH: UHLE
It Even Handcuffed Babe Ruth!
"Who was the owner of the fastest pitched ball in baseball history? Amos Rusie, of the old-time New York Giants, was a mighty man when it came to whistling the ball plateward. The same can be said of Cy Young, in the way back days at the turn of the century when he was with Cleveland, St. Louis, Boston and Cleveland a second time.
Walter Johnson, great pitcher of the Washington Senators, generally regarded as Mr. Speed as a result of utilizing nothing but fast offerings to baffle Ty Cobb, Larry Lajoie and other star hitters of the day, unquestionably threw more fast balls day in and day out than any hurler in history.
Then there's Cleveland's Bob Feller, whose offerings were not even distantly related to what are termed 'butterfly' pitches. The Indians' veteran slab luminary had plenty of swift on the ball until the last several seasons.
Fred Marberry, in the relief role for the Washington Senators, could wheel that apple at the batter. Smoky Joe Wood, pitching for the Boston Red Sox, had plenty of oomph behind every pitch. Virgil Trucks of the Detroit Tigers has plenty of fast and don't let anybody tell you differently. Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals belonged in the category of swift pitchers. So did Addie Joss, elongated right-hander with the old Cleveland Naps.
One could probably name a dozen others who would rate in the same category as those mentioned, but one name that was brought to mind by none other than Steve O'Neill, who caught for the old Naps and Indians, from 1911 through 1923, came as rather as a surprise to me.
We were doing a lot of gassing about fastball pitchers when the genial Steve came to bat with his package. We had been talking about how Babe Ruth once remarked the 'hardest pitching nut I had to crack' was a guy named George Uhle. While Big George didn't exactly own the Babe, still one had to consider him in the light of having a mortgage on the home run slugger de luxe.
I remarked George had just about as good a curve ball as I had ever seen and he certainly had the Bambino on the alert every time he faced him. Ruth never knew what to expect from Uhle and, according to O'Neill, the thing that got Babe was when George would let fly with a tremendously fast ball when he had two strikes on the Yankee star.
'Ed,' Steve remarked, 'you know I have caught a lot of pitchers and sort of godfathered Feller when he broke in, and with all due respect to Bob, Johnson, and all the other speedball artists, I don't believe any man ever lived who could throw a ball one iota faster than Uhle could that one certain pitch. It came at you like a shot from a cannon. Noted for his curve ball work, George interspersed fast balls ever and anon, but only on certain occasions did he uncork just about the fastest pitch I ever handled or saw.'
Not only Ruth, but the late Harry Heilmann, one of the truly great right-handed clubbers in baseball history; Lou Gehrig, a remarkable man at the plate in long distance hitting and driving in runs; and Eddie Collins, one of the truly great stars of the game at bat and in the field, were all agreed Uhle's particular fast ball had them baffled. Strangely enough, this stellar quartet of hitters, one right-hander and three off-side sluggers, are no longer of this earth.
O'Neill then gave an example of the superiority of Uhle in utilizing that special pitch. A bunch of outstanding major leaguers played a series of five games against an all-star Negro aggregation in Chicago some years back. The majors lost three games. Earl Whitehill won over the Negro stars, 2-0, and Uhle registered a 1-0 win when he brought his special fast ball into use. There were two out in the ninth with men on second and third when a giant Negro slugger named Suggles, who could hit the ball a country mile, came to bat.
Uhle got two hook strikes on him and Suggles, evidently expecting a third similar offering, set himself and was dazed when something shot past him at tremendous speed and the umpire yelled 'Strike three, you're out.' Steve said to him, 'Were you expecting another curve?' to which Suggles replied, 'I know one thing, mister, I sure didn't get what I was expecting. How fast can that man throw a ball?'
O'Neill paid Uhle the tribute of saying he was a great student of the game and particularly of the great batters. In the case of Gehrig, he knew that Lou would drive a sidearm pitch to left field. A three-quarter pitch would be pulled to right field. However, Uhle settled on the plan to dish up straight overarm pitches to Gehrig and, although Lou connected solidly many times, the drives would generally be out 'Speaker way.'
Ask Uhle about that special fast ball he always had in reserve and he grins and says, 'One or two in each game was enough for me.' "
by Ed Bang, condensed from the Cleveland News (Baseball Digest, April 1952)
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