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Movers and shakers: some of them did it with remarkable style; nearly all of them did it with resounding effectiveness. The most innovative athletes changed the way their games are played.(Innovations In Sports Part 4 Of 4)
PRE-1900
* In 1864, Arthur "Candy" Cummings throws shells as a boy while walking on the beach in Brooklyn and wonders about their unpredictable trajectory. He applies this experience to baseballs and discovers the curveball, then puts this flick-of-the-wrist throwing motion to use with the Brooklyn Excelsiors.
* Lightweight Joe Gans sets the table for more than a century of scientific fighters as the first to utilize the jab--arguably the most important punch in any successful boxer's arsenal.
* Jockey Tod Sloan experiments with shorter stirrups and introduces the crouched-forward riding style that revolutionizes horse racing. Sloan's success with this new "monkey on a stick" style and his flamboyant nature are the motivation for George M. Cohan to compose "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
1900s-1940s
* In 1926, Gertrude Ederle is the first woman to swim across the English Channel; using the American crawl, a stroke previously considered undignified by aristocrats, her time is nearly two hours faster than any man's to that point.
* The "Wizard of Dribble"--English soccer winger Sir Stanley Matthews--stirs up the international game in the '30s. He is a template for the modern superstar with his magical footwork and ball-control skills.
- Massachusetts scores in fluff and stuff.
- Newspaper article from: The Boston Herald Sullivan, Jack January 1, 1999 700+ words
...throwing a baseball. In 1867, Cummings became the father of the curveball when he began throwing it for the Brooklyn Excelsiors. ** In 1957, art school graduate Don Featherstone went to work for Union Products Inc., of Leominster, and...
- In the beginning, stars were formed.
- Newspaper article from: The Boston Herald O'Connor, Michael July 11, 1999 700+ words
...around New York. Brooklyn and New York stars would play at a Long Island race course. Two years later, the Brooklyn Excelsiors beat more than a dozen other "all-star" outfits from along the Eastern Seaboard. Similar showcases continued...
- The Man Who Made Baseball's Box Score A Hit
- Transcript from: NPR Morning Edition STEVE INSKEEP July 30, 2009 700+ words
...an overstatement and we'll get to that in a minute, but the first box score chronicled the game between the Brooklyn Excelsiors and their upstart rivals, the Brooklyn Stars, in 1859. Chadwick recorded the runs, hits, put-outs, assists...
- America's earliest integrated team?(Florence Eagles, Florence, Massachusetts,...
- Magazine article from: The National Pastime Turner, Brian January 1, 2002 700+ words
...played some 60 games with seven losses, most of which came at the hands of the nation's finest clubs: the Brooklyn Excelsiors and the Brooklyn Atlantics, the Tri-Mountains of Boston, and the Lansingburgh (Troy, NY) Unions. (3...
- Baseball, Springsteen & Bloomingdale's; San Francisco Company Brings Back...
- Press release article from: Business Wire October 8, 1998 700+ words
...Manhattan, became the New York Yankees in 1913.) Or, how about the origin of the curve ball? (In 1867, Brooklyn Excelsiors' William "Candy" Cummings confounded hitters and skeptics alike with his never-before-seen pitch.) With...
- A short history of the baseball cap.(The Home Forum)
- Newspaper article from: The Christian Science Monitor September 21, 1999 700+ words
...cap. It often had horizontal stripes around it that made it look a little like a layer cake. In 1860, the Brooklyn Excelsiors wore a cap that's a forerunner of today's rounded-crown, large-visor caps. This "Brooklyn style" had...
