Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 159

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 159
Description:
Jesse Haines, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands holding both of his hands and his glove directly above his head.
Creator:
Mann, Leslie
Creator:
E.W. Goodrich (Tremont Temple, Boston)
Date:
1920–1925
Format:
Photographs
Location:
Springfield College Archives and Special Collections
Collection (local):
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide Collection
Subjects:
Baseball
Baseball caps
Pitchers
Haines, Jesse Joseph
St. Louis Cardinals
Pitching
Pitching--Wind Up
Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/35
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:
Jesse Haines shows the proper way to throw a baseball overhand. In the image, Haines is demonstrating all of the proper techniques Mann follows in his manual in relation to footing and stance, but the image focuses on one key concept; hiding the baseball from the batter long enough to cover what type of pitch you are attempting to throw. In lantern slide 160, the incorrect way is shown as the ball is visible to the batter. In slide 159, the baseball isn't visible, which allows Haines to keep his batters guessing at what type of pitch he is throwing. Every type of pitch is thrown differently in some way so protecting the ball from the batter's view is very important. For example, a knuckleball or forkball is held differently than other pitches, and though the ball is held the same for a fastball or a curveball, the wrist action is different. Protecting the ball from the view of the hitter will only increase the success a pitcher has.
Jesse Haines was born on August 7th, 1893, in Clayton, Ohio. He pitched in the Major Leagues for the Cincinnati Reds in 1918, and spent the rest of his career in the Major Leagues pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1920-1937. Haines didn't actually enter the Major Leagues until he was 26 years old, mainly due to many injuries he faced during his first few seasons. He began his career with a couple good seasons as a member of the Cardinals, but after a lackluster season, he realized he needed to add an element to his pitching game to be successful since his fastball was losing value, and he chose to add the knuckleball. However, Haines held the ball with his knuckles, which was different from other baseball players who held the ball with their fingertips. This allowed Haines to throw the ball as hard as he wanted to, but it also caused Haines a great deal of pain, as pitching the knuckleball the way he did often made his knuckles bleed profusely. After a couple seasons, Haines also began to pitch the slow ball since his knuckleball was losing its effectiveness. Overall, Haines had a very inconsistent career. He had seasons where he pitched tremendously well and other seasons where he pitched terrible. In 1924, Haines pitched a no-hitter, but the rest of his season was miserable. Haines was able to pitch until he was 44 years old because of his short delivery, which put less stress on his arm. He won five National League pennants and three World Series titles while playing for the St. Louis Cardinals. Haines was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970. However, this decision faces wide criticism today, since Haines didn't really do anything that made him stand out as an exceptional pitcher, and his career statistics are a lot worse than many people who didn't get into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Haines was elected because his former teammate and coach Frankie Frisch was the chair and major voice of the Veterans Committee. Because of this, he convinced people to elect Haines and many of his other former teammates to the Hall of Fame, even when they probably shouldn't have been.
Because the stadium's background looks similar to the stadium in the background for Wilbur Cooper and the slides are showing the same purpose of how to properly throw a baseball overhand (Cooper's slide showing this is number 161), it is very likely that these slides were taken on the same day at Forbes Field.
I used facial recognition to identify the player in slide 159 as Jesse Haines.
Good condition;
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"
Wolf, Gregory H. "Jesse Haines." Society for American Baseball Research, [ https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/afeb716c ]. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017. ___Internet Archive___. [ http://web.archive.org/web/20171116185710/https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/afeb716c ].
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-159-03
159