William Arthur "Candy" Cummings was an American professional baseball player. He played as a pitcher in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, and National League. Cummings is widely credited with inventing the curveball. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.

The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP), often known simply as the National Association (NA), was the first fully-professional sports league in baseball. The NA was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season. It succeeded and incorporated several professional clubs from the previous National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) of 1857–1870, sometimes called "the amateur Association". In turn, several NA clubs created the succeeding National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which joined with the American League of Professional Base Ball Clubs to form Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1903.