MESA, Ariz. – Baseball is a sport of ritual, most of which happen in plain sight – a hitter carving out his space in the batter’s box, defenders point to the sky with fingers to signal how many outs there are, pitchers standing behind the mound before making a big pitch.
And then there are the unseen rituals.
One of those is the daily rubbing up of baseballs. No baseball that gets shipped by the factory is ever put right into play. Before that happens, someone in the clubhouse has to put a special mud on the ball to remove some of the sheen and slickness from the ball.