like he'd knock down his grandmother. He's got those big evil-looking black eyes." Despite the intimidating appearance, the New York Times wrote that in person, he "had a gentle, polite manner with a voice as soft as that of a priest in a confessional." However, there was nothing gentle about Maglie's pitching. His "Sal the Barber" nickname came from his propensity to give close shaves—that is, pitch inside to hitters. Another writer referred to him as "God's Gift to Gillette." Hirsch wrote that he had "a reputation for knocking hitters down." Willie Mays summarized his reason for throwing inside: "He always liked to be in complete control of a game, and the way he did this, or thought he had to do it, was by pitching batters close. You always had to worry about a brushback pitch from him. You knew he would throw it, but you didn't know how close he would make it." "You could catch Sal sitting in a rocking chair," said Wes Westrum, who caught him with the Giants. "Perfect control." The curveball was his specialty pitch. "Sal had three curveballs," Westrum said. "One acted like a slider. Another was a slow sweeping curve, almost a changeup. The third broke quickly." Maglie developed the curveball while pitching in the Mexican League. When throwing his fastball, he would grip the ball by the seams, with his fingers spread out. Before he threw, Maglie had a routine of, as he described it, "wiping my hand on my shirt, tugging at my cap, then licking my fingers, wiping my hand off again, rubbing it on my leg and then picking up the resin bag." He did this to get hitters fidgety and to relax himself before throwing. His habit of wiping his hands led, as Robert Creamer reported, to accusations that he threw a spitball. In 1958, Maglie wrote an article about pitching for Sports Illustrated, where he listed three characteristics of a successful major league pitcher: "1) control, both of his pitches and of himself; 2) confidence and determination; [and] 3) knowledge and experience." By control, he meant the ability "to put the ball exactly where [the pitcher] wants it every time." By confidence and determination, he meant "the kind that keeps a pitcher going when everything says to him that he is beaten, the kind that just won't permit him to quit." By knowledge, he meant "deep