LOOK OUT! NO GOOD CURVES AHEAD: VANCE
"Dazzy Vance, who had one of the sharpest-breaking curves in the business when he was at his peak with the Brooklyn Dodgers, can't understand why there are so few pitchers with a good curve ball in the major leagues today.
'You never or rarely see a good curve,' the old Dazzler said this spring. 'Every club has a pitching coach, which we didn't have in the old days, but what are these coaches doing? Are they afraid to tell a young pitcher that he doesn't know how to throw a curve? I know it can be done because I've worked with a lot of kid teams in Florida. I took one young fellow with a strong arm, very poor control and no curve at all and I got him where he could throw such a good curve that I sold him for a good figure to a big league club.'
Could he think of any good reason why the young pitchers didn't learn to throw curves?
'Well, I've noticed one trend that may have something to do with it,' Vance replied. 'I've heard coaches- pitching, infield and hitting- say very important like, 'Now we don't want to change any boy's natural style. We'll point out things he's doing wrong, but each man must find the style he likes best.' Maybe that's the trouble. Show a boy the right way to throw a curve and make him do it that way. He ain't old enough to have a natural style. So give him one. And give him the right one.'
Dazzy, who won 197 games between 1922 and 1935, recalled that George Sisler got him his big break in the major leagues. 'We moved into Mobile with an exhibition game with the Browns late in the training season,' Vance recalled. 'We'd been in training five or six weeks and old Robbie (the late Wilbert Robinson) hadn't given me a tumble. I hadn't had a starting assignment. I guess everyone else was tired, but anyhow Robbie accidentally put me in that game at Mobile. If I do say it myself, I had a pretty good curve in those days. I broke one off for Sisler, and George struck out. And as he passed Robbie he said, 'That was the doggondest curve I ever saw.' Robbie heard it and asked who threw the curve and somebody told him it was that big, new guy, Vance, and that's how he found out I was on the ball club.'
Vance's curve was the biggest this writer ever saw. Mike Haley, covering the Browns for another St. Louis paper, was sitting with us, directly behind the plate in the Mobile ball park. After one of Vance's pitches he turned and said, 'Did you see what I saw?' 'Yes,' we replied, 'but we don't believe it. That curve broke twice.'
It must have been a difficult task to catch old Dazzy and it was no wonder the Dodgers gave him a personal catcher in Hank DeBerry."
-J. Roy Stockton, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Baseball Digest, May 1959)
NO KNUCKLEHEAD, HE
"Back when Dazzy Vance was riding high on his sizzling fast one, he decided to augment it with a dipsy-do knuckleball pitch.
After a few weeks of experimenting, he was ready to test his knuckler and summoned Otto Miller to catch him. His very first pitch veered off to plunk Miller behind the ear. Exit Otto.
Eddie Ainsmith volunteered as a replacement. Dazzy's next knuckler blackened Eddie's eye. Exit Ainsmith. In came Bubbles Hargrave to pick up a catcher's mitt.
He came to when they poured a bucket of water over him, and, despite a lump on his head, went out that afternoon and poled five straight hits.
The next morning he walked up to Vance and handed Dazzy a ball. 'Hit me again,' he grinned."
-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, August 1959)
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