Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 59

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 59
Description:
Jack Smith, an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands in the batter's box at home plate with a catcher standing behind him. Smith is looking towards the dugout as his bat is located in front of his body.
Creator:
Mann, Leslie
Date:
1922
Format:
Photographs
Location:
Springfield College Archives and Special Collections
Collection (local):
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide Collection
Subjects:
Baseball
Baseball caps
Baseball fields
Smith, Jack
St. Louis Cardinals
Batting
Batting Stance
Catching
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/113
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:
Smith is demonstrating incorrect batting preparation. What that means is that Smith is standing in the batter's box, which generally means that he is ready for the pitcher to throw the baseball. At this point, the pitcher is allowed to throw the baseball at any point he feels comfortable doing so because the batter is in the box. However, Smith seems to be looking towards his dugout for something, which of course would give the interpretation that he actually isn't ready for the baseball to be pitched. Secondly, Smith is holding the bat out in front of his body, and doing this contracts his muscles. This could be a good tool to use to stretch but bringing the bat out in front of him while standing in the batter's box means that Smith is contracting his muscles right before he swings since the pitcher will throw the baseball soon after Smith stands in the batter's box. Both of these things can tremendously limit his success rate.
Jack Smith was born June 23, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois. Smith played for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Braves during his career, spending the majority of his time playing for the Cardinals. Smith was a left handed outfielder during his career. He was not a big home run hitter, hitting only 40 throughout his entire career. Smith, however, seemed to be generally fast, stealing over 20 bases 6 times in his career. However, the most bizarre thing about Jack Smith is his ability to score runs when he was on base. In 1925, Smith scored 65.4 percent of the time he was on base. Smith got on base 86 times during the season and scored a run 53 times. This is the highest success percentage of all-time. Though this stat appears to be luck and this idea is generally supported by the fact that Smith and many other not well-known players made the list, Smith made the Top 50 list 5 times in his career, while no one else made the list more than twice.
Leslie Mann identifies the player as Jack Smith on page 15 of his manual titled the Fundamentals of Baseball.
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"
Eigenauer, John D. "The Mystery of Jack Smith’s Runs." Society for American Baseball Research, [ https://sabr.org/research/mystery-jack-smith-s-runs] . Accessed 21 May 2018. ___Internet Archive___ [http://web.archive.org/web/20180521134512/https://sabr.org/research/mystery-jack-smith-s-runs ].
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-059-03
059