Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 175

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 175
Description:
Bill Sherdel, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands with his right foot planted firmly on the ground and his left foot in the air trailing behind him as he brings his left throwing arm across his body.
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
Baseball cards
Baseball fields
Sherdel, William Henry
St. Louis Cardinals
Pitching
Pitching--Follow Through
Polo Grounds, New York City, New York
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/134
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:
This is an incorrect method of preparing for a live baseball that a batter hits into the infield. What this means is that Sherdel has not prepared himself for a hit if the batter makes contact with his pitch. Sherdel's body is not centered and his glove is located away from his body. If the batter hit a line drive right back at Sherdel, his time to react to this is minimal, and Sherdel's body position shows how he is in no position to react to this line drive. The baseball would probably hit him and injure him because he didn't properly set his body up after pitching the baseball to be prepared for this line drive. Sherdel also won't be able to react as quickly to other things, like bunting. If the hitter bunted and Sherdel was still in this position, he would have to gain his balance first before he could run towards the baseball. If Sherdel had brought his rear foot forward after throwing the pitch instead, then he would have been centered and in a comfortable position and could have acted much more quickly on the baseball.
William Henry Sherdel was born on August 15th, 1896 in McSherrystown, Pennsylvania. He was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1918-1930 and a member of the Boston Braves from 1930-1932. Sherdel fits the definition of an average baseball pitcher, meaning that his career wasn't extraordinary, but it wasn't terrible. Sherdel often posted numbers right around the league average, and had a couple breakout seasons. When Rogers Hornsby became manager of the Cardinals, Sherdel's production increased due to a lot of motivation from Hornsby, and he actually became the ace, or the best pitcher, for the Cardinals over the next few seasons. Sherdel's career highlighting moments were pitching the NL Pennant winning games for the Cardinals in 1926 and 1928, and being a World Series champion in 1926. Sherdel was known for throwing the slow ball, which is a reference to the change up today. Sherdel has the fourth most wins for a pitcher in St. Louis Cardinals franchise history.
Leslie Mann identifies the player in slide 175 as Sherdel on page 35 of his manual titled the Fundamentals of Baseball.
Poor condition;
There are many cracks located along the center of the image.
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. "Bill Sherdel." Society for American Baseball Research, [ https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/47e26849]. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017 ]. ___Internet Archive___. [ http://web.archive.org/web/20171116195347/https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/47e26849 ].
Identifier:
LANT-BSBL-175-03
175