Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 193

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 193
Description:
Walter Holke, a first baseman for the Boston Braves, attempts to catch a baseball thrown to him on first base at Braves Field in Boston, Massachusetts. Holke's back left foot remains on the edge of the base while he has lifted his right foot really high in the air in order to extend his whole body and glove upward and catch the baseball that was thrown to him.
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
Holke, Walter Henry
Cincinnati Reds
Fielding Stance
Fielding--First base
Braves Field, Boston, Massachusetts
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/72
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:
Along with extending his glove upward to catch a baseball that was thrown too high in the air, Holke also extends his foot and glove outward while leaving one of his feet on the base. This demonstrates the importance of extending your body outward because extending your glove outward means that Holke will catch the ball a second quicker than he would if he didn't extend outward. This second difference could be the result of a base runner reaching first base successfully or being thrown out. It is very important for first basemen to commit to this extension constantly, as you never know when a play will come down to a second difference. Therefore, Holke should always extend outward even if he knows that the baseball will reach him far before the runner. Consistency will allow Holke's body to automatically extend outward. Holke also remains in a comfortable position in the image, one that allows him to easily extend his body both upward and outward. In this image, this is especially important since the throw from the fielder was high in the air. Being in this comfortable position allowed Holke to extend upward and catch the baseball while keeping his foot on the base.
There is very little information about Walter Holke and his career. The Society for American Baseball Research, the major website with information about the history of older baseball players, has no biography listed for Holke.
I used facial recognition to identify the player in slide 193 as Holke. I also noticed that the stadium changed in comparison to the slides with Jack Daubert, the other first baseman that Mann uses in his slides, which would show that the player also probably changed to Holke.
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"
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-193-03
193