Thorn: Carl Hubbell remembers his greatest day in baseball
From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game on February 11, 2013:
When Carl Hubbell won his eighth straight start to begin the 1937 season, he had completed twenty-four consecutive wins over two seasons. It’s no wonder that Giants fans referred to him as “The Meal Ticket.” Hubbell’s out pitch was the devastating screwball, thrown like a curve but with an opposite twist of the wrist. He threw it so often that his arm wound up permanently bent backward.
Hubbell’s screwball was never better than in the All-Star Game of 1934, when he used it to perfection, striking out–in succession–future Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin. “I figured those guys had hit better fastballs than mine and better curves,” he said. “If they were going to hit me, it would have to be my best.”
Hubbell was actually signed by the Tigers, but manager Ty Cobb didn’t like that screwball thing and refused to let him throw it. Three years later the released Hubbell was picked up out of Texas League ball by the Giants. Christy Mathewson’s famous screwball (known then as a fadeaway) was more of a change-up, and he threw it seldom, spotting it only in crucial situations, because of the wear and tear on his arm. Since then the true followers of the Hubbell-style (fast and deadly) lefthanded screwball have been Warren Spahn, Tug McGraw, and Fernando Valenzuela. Here King Carl tells John Carmichael of the Chicago Daily News about his greatest day in baseball.
Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/02/11/carl-hubbell-remembers/
Originally published: February 14, 2013. Last Updated: February 14, 2013.