Russ Ford

Russell William Ford (April 25, 1883 – January 24, 1960) was a Major League Baseball pitcher during the dead-ball era of the early 1900s. Ford is best-known as the creator of the "emery" or "scuff" ball, a pitch that was thrown with a ball that had been scuffed with a piece of emery. Ford won 26 games in his rookie season of 1910, becoming only the third player in major league history to win 20 games and strike out at least 200 batters in his first season (Christy Mathewson and Pete Alexander are the others). His pitch selection included the famed scuff/emery ball, a spitball, fastball, and knuckle ball. Ford was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989 and into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002. Russ'...