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The 2009 major league baseball season opened Saturday. It should be a great year, filled with box scores, bleacher seats, and ... a dirty little secret.
Hours before a game, beneath major league baseball’s newest stadium, one of the sport's oldest rituals is under way. Two Washington Nationals batboys are rubbing brown gunk on dozens of new balls, toweling them off once the wet dirt cakes. Only when they’re done can the umpire yell, “Play ball!”
Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud has been helping pitchers get a grip for 70 years. After a wild pitch killed a batter in 1920, a tacky substance was sought. Shoe polish and tobacco juice didn’t stick. What did was the feldspar-rich clay found in a New Jersey swamp by player and coach R. A. “Lena” Blackburne. In 1938 it became a big-league staple; in 1968 it made the Hall of Fame.
The company reaps six harvests a year from two holes in secret spots, filters out debris, and adds a “magic” ingredient for extra grip. Aged for six weeks, two three-pound vats are sent to each team—a season’s worth of joy from Mudville.
—Jeremy Berlin
Photo: Rebecca Hale, NG Staff
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