Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 3

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 3
Description:
Rogers Hornsby, a second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands on the side of the outfield in foul territory next to left field holding a bat as he gazes onto the field. Behind him there are some advertisements located on the wall in the outfield, including one of Coca Cola.
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
Batting
Hornsby, Rogers
St. Louis Cardinals
Batting Stance
Crosley Field, Cincinnati, Ohio
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/21
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:
Rogers Hornsby demonstrates a proper batting stance in the image. His left hand is near the end of the bat with his right hand immediately above his left hand. He keeps a tight grip on the bat. The hand position that Hornsby has chosen is generally a hand position of preference, meaning that it isn't set in stone. If it was more comfortable, Hornsby could move his hand up or down on the baseball bat. However, in general, the two hands should be placed one on top of another and not spread apart (though a couple inches isn't necessarily bad). This centers all the power from your body in one spot, and also makes it easier to swing a bat and control your swing than if your hands are far apart. Even though Hornsby could still be successful with a split grip, this would minimize the power of his swing. This would be detrimental to a player like Hornsby, who was a power hitter.
Rogers Hornsby was born on April 27, 1896 in Winters, Texas. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants, Boston Braves, and the St. Louis Browns during his career, but he spent most of his years as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. He is considered one of the greatest hitters of all time, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1942. Hornsby has the second highest career batting average in MLB history behind only Ty Cobb, with a lifetime batting average of. 358. He led the national league in batting seven times in his career. After retiring, Hornsby was a manager. One of the craziest facts about Hornsby is that he wasn't that good at baseball when he first started playing in the major leagues. He was skinny during his first season, and hit .246. His manager told Hornsby he was a little light, but he had the talent and said he was going to farm him out for a year. What he meant by this was he would send Hornsby to the Minor Leagues for a year to help him develop his baseball skills. However, Hornsby took this saying of farm out literally, and he spent the winter on his Uncle's farm. He gained 30 pounds of muscle and then became one of, if not, the greatest hitter in major league history. Hornsby was a very confident man who wasn't afraid to speak his mind, as he even called his manager a "boob" and his teammates "pigeons". Because of this, he often didn't get along with his teammates or coaches. Overall, though Hornsby may have been a difficult person to be friends with, he was one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
On Page 6 in his manual titled the Fundamentals of Baseball, Leslie Mann identifies the player in Slide 1 as Rogers Hornsby and the same player is used in this slide, making it Hornsby.
Poor condition;
There is a crack that runs straight down the middle of the slide, along with two more noticeable cracks that start on the right side of the image but then move towards the middle. There are also a few cracks near the bottom right of the lantern slide. The slides could probably still be held because the left side of the slide has very little to no damage, but it must be held with extreme caution.
This 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"
1. "Rogers Hornsby."National Baseball Hall of Fame, [https://baseballhall.org/hof/hornsby-rogers. Accessed 5 Oct. 2017]. _Internet Archive_. [https://web.archive.org/web/20171005174129/https://baseballhall.org/hof/hornsby-rogers] 2. Paul Rogers III, C. "Rogers Hornsby." Society for American Baseball Research, edited by Gregory H. Wolf, [https://sabr.org/author/c-paul-rogers-iii. Accessed 5 Oct. 2017.] _Internet Archive_. [https://web.archive.org/web/20171005172551/https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/b5854fe4]
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-003-03
003