Before game six of the World Series gets underway tonight, here is some humble advice for Texas Rangers starting pitcher Carl Lewis: As you take the mound, think twice about licking your fingers. That ball is stained with more than mud.
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Every new baseball thrown in the major and minor leagues has a dirty little secret. Fresh out of the factory, new balls are too slippery for pitchers to grip, so equipment managers rub them down with special mud to take off the sheen. As it turns out, nearly every ball is coated in a thin film of slime from the same secret spot in South Jersey, which a single company has harvested from the edge a quiet tributary of the Delaware River since 1938.
Connoisseurs describe the texture as a cross between chocolate pudding and whipped cold cream. Okay, so it feels nice and makes the ball easier to grip. But what’s in it?
Marine biogeochemist David Velinsky knows all about this mud, which he has studied since 1996. Based at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Velinsky told reporters recently that the goop is a mixture of decaying plant matter and particles of clay and other minerals eroding out of nearby rocks and soil. But he did not tell them that this mud is almost certainly laced with PCBs, DDTs and other contaminants well known to pollute the Delaware River watershed. (He says they didn’t ask.)
Tracking contaminants leaching from regional industries — think chemical giant DuPont as well as myriad metal works and sewage treatment plants — is what drew Velinksy and his colleagues to the area in the first place, he told Discovery News. "We’ve been up on this river, and we’ve sampled the mud," he added. (Below is a shot from one of his expeditions.)
The baseball rubbing mud is typical of the fine-grained sediment that settles out around plants growing in the tidal marshes and creeks all along the stretch between Trenton and Philadelphia, Velinsky explained. And the same chemicals that are in the water settle out with the mud. Clearly, finding toxin-free slime will take more than moving to a new “secret" location nearby.
Not to worry, though — at least not too much. The health risk to baseball players is "minimal," Velinsky reassured. His team has found that the marsh mud is far less contaminated than it was back in the 1970s, before regulatory enforcement and clean-up efforts began stemming the flow of pollution into the river. “Overall, the exposure would be very low,” Velinsky says of baseball rubbing mud. “You might not want to eat a big bite of it, though.”
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He also agreed it would be "prudent" for equipment managers to wash their hands carefully after giving a new box of balls their rub down. You may concur after watching the video below of Phillies equipment manager Dan O’Rourke showing how it’s done. As for pitchers who lick their fingers, well, let's just say pitching foul balls should be an extreme sport.
IMAGES:
Worn-out baseball. (Wikimedia Commons)
Marsh mud along the tidal section of Crosswick Creek, New Jersey, sampled by David Velinsky and his team. (Courtesy Roger Thomas)
Tags: Chemistry, Everyday Science, Extreme Sports, Pollution, Rivers
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