SJM 0326 Jay Black — Last Laugh_Big Daddy 3 / 19 / 26 5 : 16 PM Page 1 L A S T b y J A Y B L A C K L A U G H Jay Black is an award - winning standup comedian who tours all across the U.S . To find out when Jay will be performing near you , please visit JayBlack.tv A Dirty Little Secret With South Jersey Ties EVERYONE KNOWS , TO PLAY A PROP - indeed , give the pitchers better grip , but Acoach for the Philadelphia Athletics AsER GAME OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASE - it came at a cost : The balls got too dark to namedLena Blackburne lived in Palmyra BALL , you need three things : a bat , a ball see . and , onesun - dappled summer afternoon and a bucket full of magic mud from the In1920 , a player for Cleveland named in the 1930s , he scooped up some mud riverbanks of South Jersey . RayChapman was hit in the head with a anddiscovered that this particular brand ( OK , fine , you also need a glove , a pitchand died . It was said that Ray didn’t of New Jersey sludge water was able to Jumbotron , a $ 9 medium soda and a rich react at all , so it was assumed he just scuff a ball enough to pitch , but keep it person behind home plate who checks didn’t see it , because the ball was too cleanenough to see . their phone the entire game , but those dirtyfrom whatever combination of shoe - Within a few decades , it became the things didn’t really fit the rhythm of what black , gun powder and unicorn horn the official mud of Major League Baseball . I was going for . ) pitcherwas using to scuff it up . Every year now for three quarters of a “ Taking a South Jersey mud bath ” Thisled to a few things : MLB requiring century , a thousand gallons of it is carefully sounds very much like code Tony Soprano new balls to be used whenever one got collectedfrom the banks of the Delaware , might use , but it’s true . No game of baseball too dirty to see , a ban on spitballs and a stored all winter and then distributed to is allowed to be played until all of the 150 requirementfor all batters to wear helmets . everyteam . balls that will be used over the course of Though , it should be noted that it took Where , exactly , in Palmyra is this bank the game are rubbed down with a special 30 years for that last one to take effect , ofperfect baseball mud ? Only the people concoction of wet dirt from Palmyra , of because , as the national pastime , baseball who run the Lena Blackburne Baseball all places . representsAmerica . And , in America , the Rubbing Mud company know for sure ; I’m going to write a lot about pitching potentialfor serious brain damage is ab - it’s a secret as well - guarded as the Coca - in the forthcoming paragraphs , and I feel solutely worth it if it means not looking Cola formula , or the exact combination the need to explain to you that I’m only like a dork . of dyes working their way through Tom writing theoretically . I play baseball about But this also created a problem for Selleck’smustache . as well as a rhinoceros does multivariable MajorLeague pitchers : How do you scuff Youmight be asking , what is it about calculus . My father , who pitched for up a ball enough to control it , but also SouthJersey that makes this mud so per - Woodrow Wilson High School in the early keep it visible enough so as to not turn it fect ? No one knows ; it’s some perfect 1960s , was able to cultivate prize - winning into a lethal weapon ? alchemyof saline and discarded turnpike daylilies from all the tears he shed watching That’swhere Palmyra , New Jersey and tickets and the ingredients from Wawa me try to throw a ball . its magic mud comes into the story . breakfastsandwich wrappers leaking into From what I can gather , pitchers don’t thegroundwater . But I also think it’s the like brand - new baseballs because , like spirit of South Jersey , too : What better charming Southern con men , they’re slick , description of us is there than “ pretty which makes them harder to control . So , scruffy , but gets the job done ? ” in the old - timey days , when everything Further , there’s something else to con - was in black and white and every silent sider : Mud is an easy metaphor for bad film of a baseball player looked like it vibes.After all , you don’t “ mud - sling ” be - was running at double speed , the pitchers cause you like someone . Yet , the mud would use all sorts of things to scuff up fromour state is a critical component in the ball . the mechanics of our national pastime . This ran the gamut from regular - per - Could it be that everything , even the gunk son ideas like dirt from under the bleach - we’rekicking off our boots after an early - ers , to insane , only - people - in - the - early - spring walk , has a useful place in our 1900s - would - have - thought - of - this ideas lives ? like shoe polish , black licorice or tobacco I like that idea . Because it’s April , it’s juice . And most of these solutions did , baseballseason , and it’s time to play ball ! SOUTH JERSEY MAGAZINE volume 22 issue 12 SouthJerseyMagazine.com 64 |