But apparently his âsinkerâ made quite an impression on Warden. Like many other guys trying to hang on to a big league job, Ribant was clever in finding a way to get hitters out, conventional or otherwise. His âsinkerâ turned out to beâ¦the âspitballâ. Now the idea behind a âspitterâ is not some wet, gooey mess, but rather to create a âheavyâ spot on the baseball, thereby causing it to have greater wind resistance and sink dramatically when it gets to within a few feet of home plate.
When Benjamin Franklin invented his mechanical version of the instrument in 1761, he called it the armonica, based on the Italian word armonia, which means harmony. The unrelated free-reed wind instrument aeolina, today called the  harmonica , was not invented until 1821, sixty years later.
World's earliest stringed instrument found in cave from 2,300 years ago. The remains of what is beleived to be the earliest stringed instrument in western Europe have been uncovered in Scotland. A small burnt and broken piece of carved wood was found during an excavation in a cave on Skye. Archaeologists think it is part of the bridge of a lyre, a stringed instrument used in Greek classical era. It is believed to be 2,300 years old. Music archaeologist Dr Graeme Lawson told the BBC the discovery pushed the history of complex music back more than a thousand years.