Web Wednesday – Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud

Major League baseballs are white, aren’t they? If you’ve ever seen a game-used ball, you may have noticed a brownish hue all over the ball. That’s because major league rule 3.01(c) states that umpires should “ensure baseballs…are properly rubbed so that the gloss is removed.” They do that with Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud, which is dug out of the Delaware River Valley in New Jersey.  The Delaware River Basin Commission has a page devoted to it as well; there’s a nice flyer and a link to a video about the mud.

Maybe I should take some muck of the bottom of the lake by my father-in-law’s house and try it out.