Okay, I admit it. I’m not much of a baseball fan. But I am a big fan of Fulton and I’m always eager to learn its history. So when Fulton Library staff person Jeremy Wardhaugh asked me if I’d heard that the first curveball ever pitched took place right in my hometown, I wanted to know more.

Jeremy sent me several newspaper articles quoting baseball archivists who believe Fulton has a place in the sport’s history. He also explained that I wouldn’t find much about Fulton being home of the curveball in modern media coverage, but, as he said, “it was all over the papers at the turn of the 20th century, around 25 years after it was said to have taken place.” With that, I started looking back to the 1860s, before Fulton had formed as a city, but was already thriving with social and recreational activities.

Several sources, including Syracuse’s Post-Standard, do indeed credit the creation of the curveball to William Arthur “Candy” Cummings. Born and raised in Brooklyn, in 1867, while playing for the Brooklyn Excelsiors, Cummings was “caught” throwing the first curveball. But I can imagine that a good curveball takes years to develop and that’s where the city of Fulton comes in.

For several years, Cummings attended Falley Seminary, a Fulton boarding school for boys and girls of high school age. In 1864, Cummings started working on his curveball at Voorhees Park, which was across the street from the Seminary. Voorhees has long been a recreational setting for young and old to enjoy the outdoors and play games, so it’s easy to picture young Cummings throwing one baseball after another, honing his pitch.

Where did Cummings get the idea for a fast-moving baseball that curved? Some say it didn’t happen on the ball field, but on the water. “One summer day in 1864,” a Worcester newspaper reported, “Cummings was playfully tossing clamshells over the ocean surf near his home in Brooklyn. To his astonishment, the shells took on a sharp curve and returned to almost where he stood. He began studying his delivery and the flights more closely, hoping to learn the cause of the peculiar turn….He was convinced he could toss a baseball the same way.”

Cummings probably never learned the science behind how he made objects curve in his Falley Seminary classes, but someone had figured it out 200 years earlier. Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli’s theory of how objects move through the air explained it. When a pitcher puts a spin on the ball as it leaves his or her hand, the spin disturbs the air around it. Even something as insignificant as the stitches on a baseball can form a thin layer of air as it spins, causing air pressure on top of the ball to be greater than on the bottom. This makes the ball curve downward.

It was the snap of Cummings’ wrist that put such a mean spin on a baseball, and whenever he threw one, it was tough to connect with. Here’s how the Syracuse Journal described his unique pitch in 1942, over 75 years after batters first faced his curveball.

“[He was] a little bit of a fellow, and in his best pitching days did not weigh over 120 pounds, but he was as plucky and nervy a kid as they make, and the most graceful pitcher the game ever knew. When conditions were right, with the wind against his pitching, Cummings could make the ball talk” causing Doug Allison, his catcher, to say, “It’s all over; they can’t hit you with a car.”

Soon, Cummings’ creative pitching was winning plenty of games. He eventually started playing for the National Baseball Association, leading teams in Baltimore and Philadelphia. But while in Fulton, he brought a bit of fame to our city. For many years, a downtown clothing store displayed a silver ball, with its inscription noting a win on May 19, 1866, by the Falley Seminary team. Cummings was on the mound that day, where he claims to have pitched his first curveball in a regular game. Names of the players who won the trophy are also engraved on it and the Syracuse Journal noted that every one of the eight team players still alive swear that Cummings used a curveball in that game.

As proud as I am of Fulton’s history, it’s important to acknowledge that, much like today, there has always been controversy among baseball teams. Rivalry to claim the crown as creator of the curveball remains fierce. Others who compile baseball history give pitchers like Bobby Matthews and Terry Larkin credit for developing the curveball. Here’s how Connecticut’s New Haven Register made its case for a man named Fred Goldsmith:

Claims that Goldsmith was the originator of the curveball came from his grandson, John Castle. Castle remembered listening to his grandfather tell stories of being a top pitcher in the early days of professional baseball, winning many games for the Chicago White Sox. Castle said that Goldsmith’s winning ways was due to a curveball, which his grandfather discovered as a boy on the streets of New Haven. In his interview with the Register, Castle produced a yellowed newspaper clipping describing Goldsmith’s public curveball demonstration in Brooklyn in 1870, four years after Cummings was believed to have used it to win that trophy for Fulton.

Who decides what is truth and what’s merely speculation? When it comes to baseball, I’d say that responsibility goes to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which, in 1939, voted Candy Cummings into its esteemed membership. Still, a quick Google search will lead you to the ongoing dispute over who gets credit as the creator of the curveball, Cummings or Goldsmith.

Maybe the best place to leave this story is to imagine those two baseball players exhibiting some sportsmanship. I like to think of them shaking hands at the end of a game, sharing the pride of being co-partners in the creation of the greatest pitch known to baseball.