A statue that pays tribute to one of the giants in Case history returned to Case Quad this fall. Spitball, the angular black steel sculpture by the late artist Tony Smith, now anchors the south end of the Quad near Nord Hall.

The university first installed the artwork in 1972 in honor of Kent Hale Smith ’17, a former acting president of Case Institute of Technology and one of the founders of Lubrizol Corp. It’s been a source of curiosity and some belittlement ever since.

Meant to depict the erratic baseball pitch, Spitball features sharp angles and a profile that changes with the viewpoint. Over the years, some students used its shiny black surface as a chalkboard, others as a painter’s canvas, and still others as a bench. The sculpting was removed in May 2023 for the re-landscaping of the Quad. After a refurbishing, a spiffed-up Spitball was set on the lawn closer to the Bingham Building and Nord Hall. Kathleen Barrie, director of CWRU’s Putman Collection, which includes Spitball, hopes the iconic piece enjoys more respect in its new showing.

“We’re so lucky to have a piece of this quality from one of the great sculptors of American art,” Barrie told The Daily, CWRU’s online news source. “It’s meant to be walked around and appreciated from different angles. I think from the engineer-ing mind it must be pretty interesting to understand where it starts.”