Sports' Forgotten Heroes

Baseball outlawed the spitball in 1920. However, each team was allowed to designate two pitchers (if they already threw the spitter) to throw it until they retired. Burleigh Grimes of the Brooklyn (Dodgers) Robins was one of those pitchers. His spitball was quite unique in that he “coated” the ball with a special sap from a type of tree in Polk County, Wisconsin. Grimes continued to use his spitter, whenever he felt necessary throughout his career which ended after the 1934 season. Overall, Grimes won 270 games and was enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York by the Veteran’s Committee in 1964. A fierce competitor, Grimes never backed down from anyone and even let his teammates know it when he was unhappy with them. This trait - “fierceness” - might also be why so many baseball fans know the name Burleigh Grimes, but so few can tell you much about his career. It was Burleigh’s intense desire to win that actually proved to be a detriment to his career as he was shipped from team to team to