A ball that the pitcher renders - esp. smooth on one side by rubbing it hard on his glove or clothing - or doctoring it with a foreign substance - such as transparent paraffin or talcum powder - on the pitcher's uniform. Such shining or polishing helped the ball curve, as it slipped from the fingers more easily when thrown with speed, and rotating quickly, the pitch baffled batters, as it showed the white or shiny side only at split-second intervals. The pitch has been illegal, since 1920. Eddie Cicotte is said to have developed the shine ball in 1915, when he discovered that the ball did funny things, after he darkened or scuffed one side of the ball and rubbed the other side to a shine on his trousers. Hod Eller was known as a shine-ball pitcher.