Jack Chesbro Marquee Hall of Fame 1946

He learned the spitball when it was new and legal and threw it as well as anyone alive. In 1904 Chesbro started 51 games for the New York Highlanders, completed 48 of them, worked more than 450 innings, and went 41-12 with a 1.82 ERA. No pitcher has won that many in a season since 1900.

On October 10, 1904, with the pennant against Boston resting on the game, a spitball got away from him and past his catcher, and the run scored from third. New York lost the game and the pennant. He answered for that pitch the rest of his life, and his widow spent years afterward trying to have it reclassified as a passed ball.

Chesbro won 21 and then 28 games for Pittsburgh before New York bought him, and led his league in shutouts in 1901 and 1902. He finished 198-132 with a 2.68 ERA and 260 complete games. The writers gave him almost nothing across three ballots; an old-timers committee elected him in 1946, fifteen years after he died.