Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 165

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 165
Description:
Babe Adams, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, stands in foul territory directly next to left field while holding his glove around waist level at Forbes Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Creator:
Mann, Leslie
Creator:
Erker Bros. Optical Co., St. Louis Mo.,
Date:
1920–1925
Format:
Photographs
Location:
Springfield College Archives and Special Collections
Collection (local):
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide Collection
Subjects:
Baseball
Baseball caps
Adams, Charles Benjamin
Pittsburgh Pirates
Pitching
Pitching--Set Position
Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/54
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:
In this lantern slide, Adams is demonstrating a proper resting position that all right handed pitchers should follow. Adams remains in a relaxed position, as the baseball remains in his glove along the middle of his body. Adams is able to quickly and easily throw the baseball from this comfortable position. This is especially important if batters were on first or second base, and were leading off the base. Being able to throw the ball quickly and comfortably to these bases would increase the chance that Adams was able to pick off a runner off of first or second base. Adams's knees are straight and the weight of his body appears to be even on both feet. If Adams wasn't relaxed and comfortable, it would probably be much harder for him to throw the baseball. He would probably have to adjust his position into a more comfortable one before he could even throw the baseball and this couple seconds of adjusting to this position would make the difference in successfully picking a leading runner off of first or second base. Adams's body is also turned just enough towards home plate where he can still see first base out of the corner of his eye. He would be able to look towards first base without drawing too much attention from the baserunner. This is critical because if he draws the attention of the runner, the runner will retreat to the base and cannot be picked off of first base.
Charles Benjamin Adams was born May 18, 1882 in Tipton, Indiana. During his childhood, Adams had a severe incident that almost led to him losing a finger on his left hand. Because of this, Adams became a right handed pitcher despite being born a lefty. It is interesting to wonder how his career could have been different if he had been able to use his left hand to pitch. In 1906, Adams was called up from the Minor Leagues to pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals. He pitched only one game for the Cardinals, however, as he gave up 6 runs in 4 innings against the Chicago Cubs and was sent back to the minor leagues. He spent the entire 1907 season in the minor leagues before the Pittsburgh Pirates bought out his contract. However, he remained in the Minor Leagues through most of his 1908 season. 1909 therefore became his official rookie season in the MLB. Adams, at this point, was already 27. He performed well as a relief pitcher in his first season, posting a 1.11 ERA, the lowest ERA ever (still today as well) for a rookie pitcher. That year, the Pirates made it to the World Series, and despite being a relief pitcher and a rookie, the manager chose to start Adams in game 1 of the series, which was a very surprising move. There are rumors that NL president John Heydler encouraged Fred Clarke (the Pirates manager) to start Adams since Dolly Gray, a pitcher who pitched similar to Adams, had held the Tigers scoreless in an 18 inning game during the season. Adams started and won games 1, 5, and 7 for the Pirates in the Series, even pitching a shutout in game 7. He is the first and only rookie to win three games in the World Series. Adams established himself as one of the top pitchers for the next few years until he developed a sore shoulder around 1915. He was sent to the Minor Leagues, and only returned to the league in 1918 because he was exempt from the Draft since he was over 35, unlike a lot of MLB players. Adams led the league in shutouts in 1920 and only gave up 18 walks in 263 innings, which is the fewest ever for a pitcher who pitched over 250 innings in a season. He won another World Series with the Pirates in 1925 despite being 43 years old. Adams continued to pitch in the MLB and minor leagues until he was over 45 years old. Overall, Adams is known as one of the greatest control pitchers ever who thrived in the Deadball Era. His record of 1.29 walks per 9 innings is second in the modern era.
The image is similar to lantern slide 163, as Wilbur Cooper demonstrates the proper pitching set position for left handed pitchers. Seeing the set positions from both a left and right handed pitcher is very beneficial.
Leslie Mann identifies the player in slide 165 as Babe Adams on page 165 of his manual titled the Fundamentals of Baseball.
Poor condition;
There are two noticeable cracks that run along the center of the image. However, they don't take away from the image, or make it harder to see what the image is trying to show.
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 image were then combined in Photoshop to create the final image.
Lantern slide from the Leslie Mann baseball instruction course, "The Fundamentals of Baseball"
Stevens, Brian. "Babe Adams." Society for American Baseball Research, [ https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/617bd0ad ]. Accessed 29 Jan. 2018. ___ Internet Archive___. [http://web.archive.org/web/20180129172640/https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/617bd0ad].
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-165-03
165