OT Baseball Mud Story

[allstarsplus]

Here is the story behind the mud MLB uses for baseballs.
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JOY IN MUDVILLE
By Jim Bintliff, and as told to Jonathan Berr
August 20, 2008: 9:51 AM EDT

(FSB Magazine) -- I supply special mud for Major League Baseball. The story goes back to when pro baseball teams began using new balls for each game. They wanted to remove the factory gloss and make the balls easier to grip. The umpires tried in-field dirt, shoe polish, and tobacco juice, but everything damaged the ball.

Lena Blackburne, a Philadelphia Athletics coach, remembered the rich mud at his fishing hole in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. He started experimenting with the mud, mixing it with varying amounts of water to try to achieve a consistency that was thick enough to adhere to the ball yet didn't gum up the laces. In 1938, Blackburne eventually delivered a batch to the Athletics, whose chief umpire at the time liked it.
American League opponents found out about the mud and asked where they could buy some. The National League followed.

Blackburne, who didn't have kids, left the business to my grandfather, his childhood friend. My grandfather gave the business to my father, and today I run the company with my wife, Joanne. In a good year we make about $22,000 a year selling mud - I earn my living as a night-shift printing-press operator.

Every MLB team buys the stuff, which we ship in plastic three-pound containers. Umpires used to be the only folks who could apply the mud to balls, but today the job falls to clubhouse managers. The league doesn't officially endorse the product but says it's the only substance that works. It's also about tradition - essentially the MLB wants today's players to apply the same mud that Ted Williams used.

The mud is on public land, but we've always kept the location a secret to keep people from trampling it. I make about five or six trips to the mud hole a year. When I get the mud to my house, I rinse it with tap water and filter out debris. I'd like to expand the business. Recently I sold a few buckets to a few NFL teams, which have found that the mud makes footballs easier to grip. We're hoping to hear from more of them.

Jim Bintliff is president of Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud in Delran, N.J.

[allstarsplus]

Current container.



Original container.

[orioles03]

i use to have to mud up the extra baseballs for the orioles games very boring and very messy they use the same container of mud for over one season

[10thMan]

Good Story...I heard the MLB announcers talking about it on tonights NLCS Game. I always wondered what type of mud/dirt they used & where it came from.
I saw one of the Angels Catchers (Steve Solis?) preparing some Baseballs with a small container of something, near the end of 2007 Season. He would rub them up really good & store a bunch in a tube sock, then tie the end of the sock.

Sean

[OaklandAsFan]

the guy that started the company was a ballplayer back in the day and has a card in the T206 set from what I understand.

[Vintagedeputy]

Having grown up in Jersey, we baseball fans knew about the mud...

Here's Blackburne with a couple of pretty fair ballplayers...



and here's the T206 card ....

[Canseco44]

I actually caught an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe on the Discovery Channel that follows this company making the mud from start to finish. It was very interesting starting with collecting the mud all the way to showing a MLB worker rubbing the balls down with the mud before the game. I think he was with the Phillies. Anyways, the episode is available for purchase on Itunes for $1.99

Todd