What if your balls were sticky BEFORE you started rubbing?

[Sammy Sofa]

So is this going on or what?

 

https://www.draysbay.com/2019/3/4/18249693/mlb-experiments-with-new-baseballs

 

Each ball in major and minor league baseball is rubbed with a special mud for the purposes of removing the shine and making it less slick. There are some great stories about this. Umpires were simply using any mud available, with problematic results, until 1938, when Philadelphia Athletics third base coach Lena Blackburne discovered the perfect baseball mud along the New Jersey banks of the Delaware River. By the late 1950s, Lena Blackburne rubbing mud was standard in every ballpark.

 

But Major League Baseball continues to consider ways to produce baseballs that would be less slick. The main goal is to eliminate the need for pitchers to use pine tar or rosin to be able to grip the ball (and thereby decrease the opportunities for pitchers to doctor balls illegally).

 

Two years ago, experimental MLB balls, marked with a T, were used in two Arizona Fall League games. Luckily for us, Nick Ciuffo caught one of the games. Immediately after, I asked what he thought of the new ball. “It’s not good.” I tried to get one. No luck.

 

In 2018, a few balls found their way into the Cactus League marked “Prototype” across the sweet spot. Discovering this and finally able to obtain one, I tried to learn something about the project.

 

The ball itself appears to be coated with something other than mud. The coating is shinier and in some places there is a very mild stickiness. Whatever it is, it’s either very mild or wears off. Indeed, this is one problem that has slowed the adoption of these baseballs: Rawlings has yet to figure out a way to retain ball’s tacky surface.

 

Seeking more information, I reached out to MLB. “Anything used in testing is quarantined for study,” I was told. I couldn’t get any other information. Next, I reached out to Rawlings whose contact person was “not willing to divulge any information on the project as it’s under wraps at the moment.”

 

Early reports had suggested that this new ball could be introduced to regular season games as early as 2018. As they are still not in use, we have to assume that MLB felt they were not ready for action. So for the foreseeable future, vats of Lena Blackburne’s Delaware River mud will continue to hold a place of honor in every major league baseball park.

 

The reason I ask is because I was stuck (HIIIII-OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) listening to the Score on the way out of Chicago on Tuesday morning, and some guest was being interviewed who talked about the balls being used in baseball this year like it was a known fact that what's described in this article is happening, the mud is not being used, and that players are complaining about the "stickiness" of the new baseballs.

 

I randomly remembered hearing this tossed out there as an idea a few years ago, but I figured if it actually went into effect it would be a bigger deal, especially if players were complaining. But Bernstein and The Other Guy just rolled with it like this is a known thing and talked about how it could especially horsefeathers up a guy like Hendricks. Did anyone else hear this segment?

 

Is MLB actually using some type of new ball? I can't seem to find much of anything about it; mostly just the article above and ones talking about how AAA is now using MLB balls this season:

 

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/milb-2019-preview-new-year-new-baseballs/

 

Did I just, not shockingly, completely miss this happening?

[PackLandVA]

Well then aren’t you just wasting your time?!?

[Cubswin11]

I was listening to MLB radio the other day and the guy talking mentioned they weren’t using the Carolina mud or whatever the hell they had been using forever this year and they’re using something else like it was a well known thing. I don’t recall seeing that anywhere either going in to the season but it was said matter of factly.