1870 – Young pitcher Fred Goldsmith demonstrates at a public exhibition at the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn, NY that the curve ball is a real pitch and not simply an optical illusion, as he manages to make a ball bend around three parallel stakes placed in the ground. Henry Chadwick is among those in attendance and reports on the event in the next day’s paper. Goldsmith’s claim to have invented the pitch will be disputed by Candy Cummings, however.