Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 39

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 39
Description:
Jack Smith, an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands in the front left side of the batter's box at home plate while a catcher is squatting directly behind the box holding a glove. Smith holds the bat on the right side of his body with both hands as his right foot is planted firmly on the ground and his left foot is in the air.
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 fields
Smith, Jack
St. Louis Cardinals
Batting
Batting Swing--Follow Through
Catching
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/257
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 a correct batting stance for hitters to follow. Smith chooses to stand in the front of the batter's box, which gives him less time to react to a pitch being thrown by the pitcher than if he chose to stand in the back of the batter's box. However, this is all personal preference and does not represent incorrect form. Smith has made contact with the baseball, and is now in the process of stepping forward with his back left foot to begin running towards first base. However, Smith is still completing his follow through on his swing here, which represents an ideal batting stance since Smith is starting to transition from hitting to running before he has completed his swing. This is important because it saves time when Smith starts to run to first base because the transition is smooth. These couple seconds that he saves here with this smooth transition could be the difference in Smith reaching first base successfully or being thrown out.
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. However, this can probably be attributed to Rogers Hornsby since Smith bat before him in games, as Hornsby hit .402 between the years 1921-1926, which are the five years that Smith made the list.
Leslie Mann identifies the player as Jack Smith on page 9 in his manual titled the Fundamentals of Baseball.
Fair condition;
The image itself is a bit blurry and there is one crack that runs 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"
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-039-03
039