"A fellow doesn't last long on what he has done. He has to keep on delivering."

"I slipped (during the 1936 World Series) and the ball got away from me with nothing on it. Maybe it's lucky it hit Lou (Gehrig), instead of going over the plate."

"The screwball's an unnatural pitch. Nature never intended a man to turn his hand like that throwing rocks at a bear."

Transcript of Oral Interview Given to SABR (John P. Carmichael)

As far as control and stuff is concerned, I never had any more in my life than for that All-Star game in 1934. I can remember Frankie Frisch coming off the field behind me at the end of the third inning, grunting to Bill Terry, "I could play second base fifteen more years behind that guy. He doesn't need any help. He does it all by himself." Then we hit the bench, and Terry slapped me on the arm and said, "That's pitching, boy" and Gabby Hartnett let his mask fall down and yelled at the American League dugout, "We gotta look at that all season," and I was pretty happy.

 

But I never was a strikeout pitcher like Bob Feller or Dizzy Dean or Dazzy Vance. My style of pitching was to make the other team hit the ball, but on the ground. It was as big a surprise to me to strike out all those fellows as it probably was to them. Before the game, Gabby Hartnett and I went down the lineup: Charlie Gehringer, Heinie Manush, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey and Lefty Gomez. There probably wasn't a pitcher they'd ever faced that they hadn't belted one off him somewhere, sometime. We couldn't discuss weaknesses...they didn't have any, except Gomez. Finally Gabby said, "We'll waste everything except the screwball. Get that over, but keep your fastball and hook outside. We can't let 'em hit in the air." So that's the way we started. I knew I had only three innings to work and could bear down on every pitch.

 

They talk about those All-Star Games being exhibition affairs, and maybe they are, but I've seen very few players in my life who didn't want to win, no matter whom they were playing or what for. If I'm playing cards for pennies, I want to win. How can you feel any other way? Besides, there were 50,000 fans or more there, and they wanted to see the best you've got. There was an obligation to the people, as well as to ourselves, to go all out. I can recall walking out to the hill in the Polo Grounds that day and looking around the stands and thinking to myself, "Hub, they want to see what you've got."

 

Gehringer was first up and Hartnett called for a waste ball just so I'd get the feel of the first pitch. It was a little too close, and Charlie singled. Down from one of the stands came a yell, "Take him out!" I had to laugh. Terry took a couple of steps off first and hollered, "That's all right," and there was Manush at the plate. If I recollect rightly, I got two strikes on him, but then he refused to swing any more, and I lost him. He walked. This time Terry and Frankie Frisch and Pie Traynor and Travis Jackson all came over to the mound and began worrying. "Are you all right," Bill asked me? I assured him I was. I could hear more than one voice now from the stands, "Take him out before it's too late."

 

Well, I could imagine how they felt with two on, nobody out and Ruth at bat. To strike him out was the last thought in my mind. The thing was to make him hit on the ground. He wasn't too fast, as you know, and he'd be a cinch to double. He never took the bat off his shoulder. You could have pushed me over with your little finger. I fed him three straight screwballs, all over the plate, after wasting a fastball, and he stood there. I can see him looking at the umpire on "You're out," and he wasn't mad. He just didn't believe it, and Hartnett was laughing when he threw the ball back.

 

So up came Gehrig. He was a sharp hitter. You could double him, too, now and then, if the ball was hit hard and straight at an infielder. That's what we hoped he'd do, at best. Striking out Ruth and Gehrig in succession was too big an order. But, by golly, he fanned...and on four pitches. He swung at the last screwball, and you should have heard that crowd. I felt a lot easier then, and even when Gehringer and Manush pulled a double steal and got to third and second, with Foxx up, I looked down at Hartnett and caught the screwball sign, and Jimmie missed. We were really trying to strike Foxx out, with two already gone, and Gabby didn't bother to waste any pitches. I threw three more screwballs, and he went down swinging. We had set down the side on twelve pitches, and then Frisch hit a homer in our half of the first, and we were ahead.

 

It was funny, when I thought of it afterward, how Ruth and Gehrig looked as they stood there. The Babe must have been waiting for me to get the ball up a little so he could get his bat under it. He always was trying for that one big shot at the stands, and anything around his knees, especially a twisting ball, didn't let him get any leverage. Gehrig apparently decided to take one swing at least, and he beat down at the pitch, figuring to take a chance on being doubled up if he could get a piece of the ball. He whispered something to Foxx as Jim got up from the batter's circle, and while I didn't hear it, I found out later he said, "You might as well cut...it won't get any higher." At least Foxx wasted no time.

"(Carl) Hubbell threw a devastating screwball, a pitch that changed the course of his career." - Historic Baseball

"(Carl) Hubbell was the finest left-hander in the National League in the late 1920s and 1930s." - TheBaseballPage.com

"In terms of All-Star Game pitching feats, there is one standing far, far apart from all others. On July 10, 1934, in the Polo Grounds, the National League's Carl Hubbell wrote himself some baseball history by striking out the final three men of the first inning and the first two of the second. Any self-respecting baseball historian knows the names by heart, and almost invariably rattles them off so quickly it's as if the five men had one name: Ruthgehrigfoxxsimmonscronin." - Sportswriter Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe (2002)

"I remember one year in spring training in San Antonio. Cobb was out there standing behind the pitchers, see. Carl Hubbell was up from Oklahoma City, I think it was. Ol' Hubbell was foolin' with this darn screwball. I was standing there beside him. And Cobb told him, 'Forget that screwball.' He didn't want any of his pitchers foolin' around with any screwballs. And they got in an argument. Well, Carl was gone by the next week. He got with the Giants. Boy, Cobb made a mistake there." - Richard Bak in The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit (1993)

"I was only seven years old then, but I remember him (Carl Hubbell) doing that. And what an amazing feat. When you talk about the guys that he struck out in a row, you're talking about some of the greatest hitters that ever held a bat in their hands. You're talking about Jimmie Foxx and Lou Gehrig and Al Simmons, Babe Ruth. My God, they were something. To see him throwing that screwball to them was unbelievable." - Tommy Lasorda

"The Giants' mainstay of the 1930s, Carl Hubbell led the club to three pennants in a five-year span, during which he averaged 23 victories a season and was twice named MVP. Baffling hitters with a devastating screwball, 'The Meal Ticket' compiled a streak of 46 1/3 scoreless innings in 1933 and won 16 straight games in 1936 (and 24 over two seasons). He remains famed for his performance in the 1934 All-Star Game when he fanned Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in succession." - National Baseball Hall of Fame

"The source of his skill is his matchless control in using his curveball to set up his screwball. Emotions, if he has any, never affect him." - Waite Hoyt in New York Giants : A Baseball Album (1999)

"You (Jimmie Foxx) might as well cut. It won't get any higher." - Lou Gehrig (After striking out in the 1934 All-Star Game & on the way back to the dugout [Source - MLB.com])

"With his gaunt, smiling face, big, floppy ears, and an arm permanently turned completely around from the strain of tens of thousands of screwballs, King Carl appeared unlikely to strike fear in the hearts of opposing batters." - BaseballLibrary.com

Quotes From & About Carl Hubbell