PLAYMAKER NOTES

Every player who plays baseball wants to become a good hitter, for hitting is the blood and bone of baseball; without hitting or with weak hitting...

Keep the bat back in position to hit once the pitcher gets into pitching position on the mound. Make sure that you are the proper distance from t...

When scoring a baseball or softball game in Playmaker Journal, use the players' nicknames. You will remember their given names and their family na...

A really valuable extra pitch is the slider--the fast ball curve or the nickel curve, as it is often called. The slider is actually a combination ...

The only extra pitch a good strong pitcher needs at the start is a change-up. And the best change-up (off-speed pitch) is the one thrown off the f...

After you have full control of your fast ball, you can start on your curve. The fast ball, in the beginning, can be your only weapon, and until yo...

Most ball players have superstitions--though many will say theirs is just a nervous habit or idiosyncrasy. In any league you'd find players: chang...

The screwball, or reverse curve, is thrown in a manner similar to the delivery of the sinker, except that the wrist is snapped as the wrist rotate...

Minneapolis' Frankie Danneker twisting home as his teammates pilfer third and second. Indianapolis catcher Bob Brady gets the ball too late for um...

John "Chief" Meyers, left, catcher for the New York Giants, talks with the Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Charles "Chief" Bender before the first ...

Dime novels--small cheap books geared toward boys--were best sellers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The most popular subjec...

Nicknamed "Big Train" for his sizzling fastball--which may have topped 100 mph in his prime--Walter Johnson spent his 21-year career (1907-1927) w...