Snowball

Snowball is an item that was added during the Minecraft Alpha 1.0.5 update. They are obtained when a snow block (4 snowballs obtained) or snow (1 snowball obtained) is destroyed with a shovel (as of the 1.0.5_1 update). They can be stacked up to 16 snowballs. They are a throw-able item that does not do any damage, but still knocks back mobs and gives the same effect as if it was damaged. This makes it useful for herding and useful for knocking creepers off of high areas. Hitting sheep will even shear the sheep making it an effective way to get wool without hurting the sheep (using a fishing rod is an alternative). Snowballs cannot be placed, they can only be thrown. Four snowballs can be combined in order to create a snow block.

Trivia

 * Before the Seecret Saturday Update 1, you could get more than four snowballs from each block.
 * Throwing a snowball through lava causes it to catch fire resulting in a flaming snowball which will still do no damage nor set things on fire.
 * A flaming snowball looks exactly like a ghast's fireball.
 * A snowball can kill a slime
 * When riding a pig with a saddle, If you aim down and throw snowballs it is possible to 'fly' a pig

Schneeball