Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 134

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 134
Description:
Bill Doak, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, shows one of the ways to hold a baseball when pitching a fastball. Doak places his index and middle finger across the seams of the baseball while placing his thumb beneath the baseball. While his middle and index finger rest across the seams along the top of the baseball and his thumb rests along the bottom, his other two fingers rest along the side of the baseball.
Creator:
Mann, Leslie
Date:
1920–1925
Format:
Photographs
Location:
Springfield College Archives and Special Collections
Collection (local):
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide Collection
Subjects:
Baseball
Baseball caps
Baseballs
Doak, William Leopold
St. Louis Cardinals
Pitching
Pitching--Fastball
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/3
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
This work is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License (CC BY-NC-SA).
CC BY-NC-SA icon
Publisher:
Springfield College
Language:
English
Notes:
Bill Doak demonstrates the proper way to hold a baseball when pitching a fastball. His fingers follow the formation Leslie Mann described in his instruction course manual, as Doak has his index finger over as much of the seams as possible, which allows the baseball to rotate off his fingers. Doak also maintains a gap between his index and middle finger on the baseball. This gap is important for helping Doak maintain maximum velocity and control on his pitch. The baseball leaves his hand by rolling directly out over the tips of his middle and index fingers, which occurs properly because of the correct finger position that Doak maintains on the baseball.
William Leopold Doak was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 28, 1891. Doak was a very honest and moral man who taught a Sunday school class. Doak played for the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, and the Brooklyn Robins during his career. However, he mainly played for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1914, while on the Cardinals, one of his coaches suggested Doak try the spitball, and Doak became one of the top pitchers in the league after beginning to use the spitball. Doak would actually become known as Spittin' Bill Doak because of this. When the pitch was outlawed in 1920, Doak was one of 17 pitchers who was allowed to continue throwing the spitball until their career was over. Doak has the second most shutouts thrown in Cardinals history with 32, only trailing Bob Gibson. Doak also helped design baseball gloves, suggesting a web be placed between the first finger and thumb to create a natural pocket. These gloves that Doak suggested were revolutionary and are still used in baseball today. After retiring, Doak moved to Florida where he opened a candy shop and coached baseball for a high school in Florida.
I used facial recognition to identify the player in slide 134 as Bill Doak.
Good condition;
The digital image is made from two separate digital scans; one scan of the lantern slide (reflective); one scan of the image (transparency); the two images were then combined in Photoshop to create the final image
Lantern slide from the Leslie Mann baseball instruction course, "The Fundamentals of Baseball"
Steinberg, Steve. "Bill Doak." Society for American Baseball Research, [ https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/1359e4e2 ]. Accessed 24 Oct. 2017. ____Internet Archive____. [ https://web.archive.org/web/20171024171207/https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/1359e4e2 ].
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-134-03
134