The Delivery That Made Coaches Cringe
Eddie Cicotte's fastball looked like it was thrown by a man falling down stairs. His arm angle defied every coaching manual ever written. His follow-through violated the basic laws of pitching mechanics. And for seven years, every coach, manager, and scout who saw him pitch had the same reaction: Fix that delivery or find another career.
Photo: Eddie Cicotte, via www.statspros.com
Cicotte chose neither option. Instead, he doubled down on the very motion that made traditionalists wince—and in doing so, accidentally invented one of the most devastating pitches in baseball history.
The Castoff Circuit
By 1905, Cicotte had been released by more minor league teams than most players ever join. The pattern was always the same: coaches would see his natural talent, try to "correct" his unorthodox delivery, and when he refused to change, they'd cut him loose. The Augusta Tourists lasted three weeks with him. The Newark Indians made it two months before deciding his stubborn streak wasn't worth the headache.
"Every pitching coach in organized baseball knew what a proper delivery looked like," former teammate Sam Crawford would later recall. "Eddie's looked like he was having a seizure on the mound. But the ball did things that shouldn't have been possible."
The problem wasn't Cicotte's results—even in the minors, he was striking out batters at an alarming rate. The problem was that he threw the ball wrong, and in the early 1900s, wrong was unacceptable, regardless of effectiveness.
The Accidental Innovation
What coaches saw as a fundamental flaw, Cicotte understood as his greatest asset. His sidearm delivery, combined with an almost submarine release point, created a spin on the baseball that no hitter had ever encountered. The ball would start at chest level, then dive sharply down and away from right-handed batters, often ending up in the dirt while they swung helplessly above it.
Modern physics would eventually explain what Cicotte discovered through pure instinct: his unique arm angle created a gyroscopic effect that made the ball behave like a knuckleball with the velocity of a fastball. But in 1905, all anyone knew was that batters couldn't hit it, and coaches couldn't stand it.
The Detroit Gamble
Hughie Jennings, the manager of the Detroit Tigers, had watched Cicotte pitch in a semi-professional game in 1905. While other scouts saw a pitcher with terrible mechanics, Jennings saw something different: a man who got outs in ways that couldn't be taught.
Photo: Detroit Tigers, via image.grishko.com
"I don't care if he throws the ball with his feet," Jennings reportedly told team owner Frank Navin. "Batters can't hit him. That's all that matters."
Jennings made Cicotte one promise: no one would try to change his delivery. In exchange, Cicotte would have to prove that his unconventional methods could work at the highest level of professional baseball.
The Knuckleball Revolution
What happened next changed baseball forever. Cicotte's "broken" delivery evolved into what would become known as the knuckleball—a pitch so unpredictable that catchers needed oversized mitts just to have a chance at stopping it. His success inspired other pitchers to experiment with unconventional grips and arm angles, leading to an explosion of new pitch varieties that enriched the game for generations.
Between 1907 and 1917, Cicotte won 156 games for the Tigers and later the Chicago White Sox. His earned run average consistently ranked among the league's best, and his strikeout totals were legendary. More importantly, he proved that sometimes the "wrong" way to do something might actually be the right way—if you're brave enough to stick with it.
The Legacy of Stubborn Genius
Cicotte's career would later be overshadowed by his involvement in the 1919 Black Sox scandal, but his impact on pitching mechanics endures. Every knuckleball pitcher since—from Hoyt Wilhelm to Tim Wakefield to R.A. Dickey—owes a debt to the man who refused to throw the ball "correctly."
"Eddie taught us that sometimes the textbook is wrong," said Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson. "Sometimes the best way to succeed is to ignore what everyone else is telling you to do and trust what your instincts are saying."
Photo: Walter Johnson, via rarebookcellar.cdn.bibliopolis.com
In a sport obsessed with proper form and traditional methods, Cicotte's greatest achievement wasn't his win total or his strikeout record. It was proving that innovation often comes disguised as insubordination, and that the most revolutionary breakthroughs happen when someone is stubborn enough to keep doing what everyone else insists is impossible.
Today, when young pitchers struggle with conventional mechanics, coaches sometimes remember the lesson of Eddie Cicotte: that greatness doesn't always look the way you expect it to, and sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the way and let talent find its own path to success.
