U.S. baseball players cursed the Japs for a special reason. The lively ball which big-league clubs had counted on to make up for the lack of lively players turned out to be a dud that only a pitcher could love. Of the first eleven games of the season, seven were shutouts. Only one player (Yankee Joe Gordon) succeeded in hitting the new ball far enough to get a home run.
The reason, as explained by Ball Manufacturer A. G. Spalding & Bros.: The rubber cement used in the 1943 models is reprocessed rubber. It had unexpectedly hardened and the result was a...
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