The Summary For years, a special mud has been rubbed on every baseball before every major league game to make them less slippery. Called Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud, it comes from a single source: a secret spot along the banks of a tributary of the Delaware River. The magic mud is applied to every ball used in Major League Baseball, including in this year’s World Series. The authors concluded that any attempt to create a synthetic substance to replace the mud — something Major League Baseball has explored — would be foolish. An undated photo shows Burns Bintliff, a prior owner of Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud, with a can of mud.

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Persons: Lena Blackburne, Jim Bintliff, ”, Doug Jerolmack, Mark Griffey, ” Jerolmack, Carl Mays, Ray Chapman, ’, ” Bintliff, Burns Bintliff, Blackburne, Bintliff, Shravan Pradeep, Paulo Arratia, Xiangyu Chen, Felipe Macera, Emanuela Del Gado, Del Gado, Rob Manfred Organizations: MLB, University of Pennsylvania, National Academy of Sciences, Major League Baseball, Penn Engineering, New York Yankees, Cleveland, National League, Baseball Hall of Fame, Philadelphia Athletics, Dodgers, Penn, Georgetown University’s Institute, Little League, National Football League teams, Dow Chemical Locations: Delaware, New Jersey