have something on the ball: be unusually alert, talented, or intelligent

To a pitcher, having something on the ball means throwing a curveball, slider, sinker, knuckleball, change-up, or other pitch that deceives the batter into swinging at the ball, but not hitting it. Sports writers as early as 1912 were using the term literally, although they usually wrote about players who did not have something on the ball. A San Francisco Call reporter writes in 1913, "Confidence is great stuff, but the pitcher must put something else on the ball."

By the 1930s, on the ball was being used to mean alert, intelligent, or capable. Baseball players are still spoken of as literally having some particular kind of throw on the ball -- or not.

Read more about this expression in Let's Talk Turkey: The Stories Behind America's Favorite Expressions (Prometheus, June 2008).