A 1914 advertisement for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes featuring New York Yankee catcher Ed “Jeff” Sweeney:
“In every line-up of the cigarette league champions, you’ll find good old steady sweet Caporal playing first.”
Three years later, while playing for the Toledo Iron Men in the American Association, Sweeney told a reporter about his former teammate Russell Ford, and the development of the Emery Ball.
Sweeney and Ford were teammates with the Atlanta Crackers in the Southern Association in 1907:
“One day while Sweeney was catching Ford in a warm up stunt before a game Russ made a wild peg and the ball bounded into a concrete pillar.
“‘I didn’t know anything about it,’ explains Sweeney, “but after that, I noticed the ball breaking in a peculiar way. I remarked about it to Ford, but he didn’t appear interested. I never saw (Ford throw it) again that season.
“‘I was purchased that summer by the Yankees (he joined the team in 1908). Owner (Frank) Farrell came to me one day and asked who was the best pitcher in the Southern Association. I told him Ford. And Russ was drafted.'”
After an unsuccessful one-game trial with Yankees in 1909, Ford spent the remainder of the 1909 season with the Jersey City Skeeters in the Eastern League. When Sweeney and Ford were reunited the next spring with the Yankees, Ford told the catcher he “‘(H)ad a ball no catcher in the world could receive. I laughed at him but he persisted.'”
Sweeney said Ford “‘took me into his confidence'” and explained his new pitch, Ford told Sweeney that day in Atlanta he noticed the effect the damage caused by the ball hitting the concrete post had on his ability to make it curve, and he continued experimenting:
“‘Russ showed me a little leather ring that he slipped over a finger of his left hand…All he had to do was to scratch the ball with the emery, that was pasted to the leather…The bigger the scratch the greater the freak jumps the ball would take…He would fake a spitter, and nobody ever got wise. When he pitched he always requested that I catch him.’
“‘When Russ threw the ball with runners on or in pinches, no batter in the world could hit it. Once in while somebody did, but it was by accident…I’ve seen batter after batter miss the ball a foot.'”
Baseball History Daily 
Ed “Jeff” Sweeney (no one in family referred to him as “Jeff” apparently)was my great uncle. Great to find these bits of history about him!