Negro Leagues / 1920s-1930s
Chet Brewer's Emery Ball
Scuff one side and it dives like a spitter, no spit required
Documented
Brewer roughed one side of the ball so it dove like a spitball without any moisture — a dry doctored pitch he learned from the men who specialized in it. He set it next to a live, running fastball and a hard overhand drop, and the package made him one of the great finesse arms of the Negro Leagues. The same scuffing that made him was banned in the white majors before he ever could have crossed over.
What it was
An emery ball — one side of the baseball deliberately scuffed so it dove sharply like a spitball without any moisture — paired with a lively running fastball and a hard overhand drop, learned from established emery specialists.
Why it is lost
The emery ball was banned in the white major leagues after 1920; Brewer built his career on a pitch that was legal in his game and illegal in theirs, so when integration came his signature offering had no lawful place.
The surviving record
Brewer learned the emery ball from Emory 'Country' Osborne and Ted 'Double Duty' Radcliffe, and threw it alongside a live fastball and a devastating overhand drop that was especially hard on left-handed hitters.
Radcliffe, who taught it, claimed to be the best at the emery ball — hiding a piece of emery cloth in his chewing gum and using it to make the ball break any way he wanted.
Radcliffe's own description as relayed in Brewer's Wikipedia entry; first-person claim quoted through a secondary source.
Every line here is what the recovered record can actually support, labeled by its source and its confidence. Where the legend says more than the record can prove, the gap is shown, not filled.