About 1865, Martin pitched a slow and deceptive drop ball, it being a style of delivery peculiarly his own, and one I have never seen used by any one else, though Cunningham of Louisville uses it to a certain extent.
The greatest change ever made in the National Game was the introduction of what is known as curve pitching, followed as it was several seasons afterwards by the removal of all restrictions on the method of delivering the ball to the batter.

Arthur, known under the sobriquet of "Candy," Cummings of Brooklyn is generally conceded to have been the first to introduce curve pitching, which he did about 1867 or 1868.
Mount, the pitcher of the Princeton College and Avery of Yale are accredited with using the curve about 1875, but Mathews of the New York Mutuals and Nolan of the Indianapolis team were among the first of the professional pitchers, after Cummings, to become proficient in its use, which was generally adopted in 1877, and to the skill acquired by both of these men in handling of the ball I can testify by personal experience, having had to face them, bat in hand, on more than one occasion.
Many people, including prominent scientists, were for a long time loth to believe that a ball could be curved in the air, but they were soon satisfied by practical tests, publicly made, as to the truth of the matter.
With the doing away with the restrictions that governed the methods of the pitcher's delivery of the ball and the introduction of the curve the running up of large scores in the game became an impossibility, and the batsman was placed at a decided disadvantage.
Reading over the scores of some of those old-time games in the present day one becomes lost in wonder when he thinks of the amount of foot-racing, both around the bases and chasing the ball, that was indulged in by those players of a past generation.

Here are some sample performances taken from a history of base-ball, compiled by Al Wright of New York and published in the Clipper Annual of 1891, which go to illustrate the point in question.
The largest number of runs ever made by a club in a game was by the Niagara Club of Buffalo, N.Y., June 8th, 1869, when they defeated the Columbias of that city by the remarkable score of 209 to 10, two of the Niagaras scoring twenty-five runs each, and the least number of runs, scored by any one batsman amounted to twenty.

Fifty-eight runs were made in the eighth inning and only three hours were occupied in amassing this mammoth total.

Just think of it! Such a performance as that in these days would be a sheer impossibility, and that such is the case the base-ball players should be devoutly thankful, and, mind you, this performance was made by an amateur team and not by a team of professionals.
One hundred runs and upward have been scored in a game no less than twenty-five times, the Athletics of Philadelphia accomplishing this feat nine times in 1865 and 1866, and altogether being credited with scores of 162, 131, 119, 118, 114, 114, 110, 107, 106, 104, 101, and 101.