His name was mud.
Actually his name was Russell
“Lena” Blackburne. So, mud wasn’t his
real name but mud was his game.
Everyone called him Lena. He was an old-time big league
baseball player, coach and manager. He
played in 539 games for five teams, including the Chicago White Sox. His longest association as player and later
coach was with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics.
Born in Philadelphia in 1885, Blackburne died at age 81 at
his home in Palmyra, N.J. He was the third base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1938 when his name forever became
synonymous with mud.
A baseball rule required umpires to rub new baseballs with
something – usual dirt – to take the shine off the leather cover and therefore
make it less slippery for the pitcher. However, dirt discolored and often scratched the
leather.
Something inspired Blackborne to collect mud from either a
stream or the Delaware River near Palmyra.
He said It had the consistence of
chocolate pudding and proved ideal for rubbing
baseballs.
Collecting and selling “Lena Blackborne’s Rubbing Mud" became
a sideline business. The entire
American League started buying Lena’s
miracle mud. Both leagues and the minor leagues soon adopted it as standard.
Lena always kept secret the exact area where he mined the
mud, sharing it only with one close friend. He died in 1968 and the mud business has
stayed in the friend’s family ever since.
Lena Blackborne’s Rubbing Mud Company has a nice website. It
claims to still sell its product to all the professional and semi-pro teams.
Containers of the mud sell for $25 to $100.
The large size should last a season.
We guess that, if the TV
show Shark Tank was around in 1938 and Lena appeared asking for a loan to
start a mud business, he would be laughed off the show.