Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 137

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 137
Description:
Bill Doak, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, shows one way to hold a baseball when attempting to throw a fade away pitch. Doak's index and middle finger run along one side of the baseball over the seams with his thumb on the other side of the baseball and his other two fingers located on 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--Fade away ball
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/4
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, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, demonstrates the proper technique for how to hold a baseball when attempting to pitch a fade away ball. As Mann describes in his baseball instruction course manual, the fade away ball is one of the most difficult pitches to master. However, if the fade away ball is pitched correctly, it is very difficult for batters to hit, since the ball revolves downward and inward. In the image, Doak holds the ball in the same way as you would hold a fastball. However, the ball leaves the hand over the long edge of the middle finger. This is opposite to that of a curveball, where the ball leaves the hand over the long edge of the middle finger. In the image, Doak puts his fingers in the same places he would if he was pitching a fastball, but he rotates the ball in his hand to demonstrate how to pitch a fade away ball, similar to the rotation Doak would do with his hands if he was actually throwing this type of pitch.
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 Brookyln 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.
In lantern slides 134-137, Mann uses Bill Doak to show the similarities between three types of pitches; the fastball, curveball, and fade away ball. While the actual location of the fingers are all the same, the rotation for the ball differs. For a fastball, the ball leaves the hand over the index finger and middle finger, while when throwing the curveball the ball leaves the hand over the index finger. When throwing the fade away ball, the ball leaves the hang over the edge of the middle finger.
I used facial recognition to identify the player in slide 137 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-137-03
137