Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 167

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 167
Description:
Jesse Haines, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands holding his hands and his gloves above his head, demonstrating an overhead pitching position.
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
Pitchers
Haines, Jesse Joseph
St. Louis Cardinals
Pitching
Pitching--Set Position
Sportsman Park, St. Louis, Missouri
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/55
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 the image, Jesse Haines is stretching his arms out before entering his resting position. This picture represents a position that many pitchers come to before they come to set. This is done because it stretches out the shoulders of the pitcher. This is important because when pitchers enter the set rest position, they will be throwing the baseball from this resting position meaning they won't be throwing the baseball overhand. This motion that Haines is completing in slide 167 is done by pitchers when they pitch overhand so it is important for these muscles to still be stretched before throwing a baseball from resting position with so much force.
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.
I used facial recognition and similar slides to identify the player in slide 167 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 image 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-167-03
167