Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 171

Item Information

Title:
Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 171
Description:
Jesse Haines, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, holds his glove with a baseball inside of it around waist level. The glove appears to rest against his waist with there being no separation between his glove and his body.
Creator:
Mann, Leslie
Creator:
Erker Bros. Optical Co., St. Louis Mo.,
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
Link to Item:
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16122coll10/id/283
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:
Haines is demonstrating one of the correct set positions that pitchers can choose to follow before throwing a baseball. Set positions are often used when there are already runners on base because from here, Haines would not be forced to wind up, which takes time and could allow the baserunners to get a couple extra seconds of run time if they chose to steal, which could be the difference in the baserunner successfully stealing or being thrown out. This is one of the many appropriate set positions that pitchers should follow. Mann notes how it is important to change up the set position used because using the same one over and over again will alert batters and baserunners to your habits. However, changing up the set position frequently helps keeps these batters and baserunners off guard because they would not be able to correctly guess the next decision that Haines decided to make.
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 to identify the player in Slide 171 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-171-03
171