Posted By:
Brian HI think that there were probably more past balls/wild pitches in that era than today (this could be looked up); and
I know that the great Pitchers of the dead ball (pre-1920) era didn't bear down except when they had to. Matty called this "pitching in the pinch". My guess is that the relative lack of situations where the Pitchers had to "bear down" probably made things a bit easier for the Catchers and may have off-set the difficulties posed by the soiled baseballs and the spitballs for the catchers.
This however accounts only for some of the problems for dead-ball era catchers that Julie identifies -- hopefully someone else can solve them now that I have put this thread back on top. 