Magic Muck

CORPUS CHRISTI - Ninety-four years ago, Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was one of the game's most popular players.

On Monday, August 16, 1920, Cleveland traveled to New York and the Polo Grounds for a series with the Yankees. In the fifth inning, Chapman crowded the plate against Carl Mays. An inside fastball sailed on the submarine righty, striking Chapman in the temple.

Chapman collapsed at the plate. The impact fractured his skull and lacerated his brain. He died early the next morning following emergency surgery.

To this day, the 29-year-old is the only player in Major League Baseball history to die as the direct result of an injury sustained during a game.

New regulations were instituted for 1921, ending what was known as the dead-ball era. One of those rules, found today under section 3.01(c), states umpires must ensure baseballs are "properly rubbed so that the gloss is removed" prior to each game.

Enter Russell Aubry "Lena" Blackburne.

In 1938, he was the third-base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics and overheard umpires complaining about the process of removing the sheen.

"They tried all kinds of ways to improve the grip of the ball," James Bintliff, a ball gloss removal expert, said. "They tried shoe polish or infield dirt or tobacco juice, stuff like that. But everything they used either damaged or discolored the ball too much to be usable."

It is believed Chapman never saw the ball that killed him because discoloration made it difficult to pick up in flight.

Blackburne discovered some muck in the Delaware River, near his hometown of Palmyra, N.J. The mud removed the slickness without damaging the ball. The umpires approved and the American League adopted it. Because of the rivalry between the AL and the National League, Blackburne didn't begin selling to the NL until the '50s.

"(The game) is a lot safer. You see what these pitchers do with the ball; you can see the movement they get out of them," Bintliff said. "Before the mud, they had a serious problem with control. The Chapman incident was the kicker. That's when they decided they had to standardize the rules on balls."

Today, Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud is used by every major league and minor league team.

Bintliff is a 57-year-old New Jersey native who makes a living on the graveyard shift as a printing press operator. But that's not why he was featured on the first episode of the TV series Dirty Jobs. By day, he is the mud man. Since childhood, Bintliff has harvested baseball's magic mud.

"I was about nine years old when we first started dealing with the mud in our household," Bintliff said. "I can remember in the early days going with my grandfather. We used to just get an old steel kettle, fill it up and throw it in the trunk of his car, take it back to the house and process it and can it up every spring."

Blackburne handed the business over to his close friend and Bintliff's grandfather, John Haas, the only other person who knew the mud's secret location. Haas then passed the business to Bintliff's parents, Burns and Betty.

"My parents retired and moved to Delaware. That was in the late '70s. I was doing all of the physical work, my father was handling all of the talking with Major League Baseball.

"I was doing the work and he was getting the money," added Bintliff with a laugh.

Initially, Bintliff's father only made his miracle mud available for major and minor league teams. Shortly after Bintliff and his wife, Joanne, took over the company in 2000, they made it available to the public. Blackburne's mud can now be found at Little League diamonds, collegiate fields and in independent league stadiums across the country.

"I guess from the time we took over, it took two or three years and we were doing about four-times the amount of mud that my father was selling," Bintliff explained. "We don't actively advertise it; it's on the web. The primary source of advertising is word of mouth."

The collection method hasn't changed. Bintliff, with occasional help from his son and future son-in-law, treks through the backwoods with a shovel to Blackburne's secret fishing hole. He fills his buckets with mud before lugging the hefty haul back to his vehicle. Although he will not reveal where the mud is located, or how it is processed, it takes approximately six weeks until canning and delivering.

"If it's a drought season it's a little shorter because the mud's not as wet," Bintliff said. "Rainy season is a little harder because it's hard to get the mud when the water level is higher than normal, so it takes a little longer. It's like aging wine; I like to have six weeks to get the best batch."

Corpus Christi Hooks clubhouse manager Brad Starr was one of Bintliff's most recent customers. Starr ordered a professional-sized container in mid-July. This two-pound canister of mud, costing nearly $100, will last him a season.

"I rub 10 dozen baseballs every game," Starr said. "I can do one case in about 15 minutes. I have a little system that includes my bat boys, but if I were to do the whole thing myself, it would take about a half hour."

Properly rubbing a baseball with the right amount of mud is an art.

"Some things can't be taught," Starr said. "It's a feel thing; some people have it, some don't. I've been doing it since I was 11 when I was a bat boy.

"You're not going to make everyone happy. The pitchers want them dark and the batters want them light, so there will be slight variations in each ball."

Baseball teams are no longer the only ones calling. The word has begun to spread throughout the National Football League, and according to Bintliff, about half of the NFL teams are now using it on footballs.

"It does the same thing; it removes whatever factory coating is on the ball without damaging the leather or the laces."

Apparently Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, a former minor league second baseman, liked how the mud enabled him to grip a baseball; it was on his footballs during Super Bowl XLVIII.

"I can't name the teams, but I will tell you that both of the teams in the Super Bowl this year use my mud."

So the next generation of mud farmers will likely need to produce a larger crop. Bintliff will soon turn the trade over to 22-year-old daughter Rachel and fiancé, Zach Wallace.

"One day when I was about 15 years old, my mother sat me down and said, 'When we're too old to do this, this is yours,'" Bintliff said. "I kind of did the same thing to my youngest daughter. I sat all of my kids down and told them that Rachel is going to be the next president.

"She's going to be the mud queen."