Northpinellas: 'Mud Man' took the shine out of baseball

'Mud Man' took the shine out of baseball

Burns Bintliff supplied the perfect mud to dull new balls for the major and minor leagues. He never revealed its source.

By CRAIG BASSE, Times Obituaries Editor

Burns Bintliff supplied the perfect mud to dull new balls for the major and minor leagues. He never revealed its source.

LARGO -- "Just call me Joe Fan the Mud Man."

That's how Burns Bintliff, 81, keeper of one of baseball's most closely guarded secrets, wanted to be remembered.

He had a good time with a simple product that works to perfection.

To his neighbors in Largo, he was a retired New Jersey Turnpike maintenance contractor. To major league players, he was the source of the "magic mud" that umpires rub on baseballs before games at every major and minor league ballpark in America and Canada.

Mr. Bintliff, who died April 20 at St. Petersburg General Hospital after surgery, would not talk about the mud. But he loved the fact that only a few family members know where it comes from.

Why rub mud on baseballs?

Professionals say balls straight out of their plastic wrapping need to shed some of their shine. Hitters sometimes are blinded by the glare when the sun or indoor lighting hits the too-white surface. Pitchers can't get a good grip.

And any old mud won't do. Mr. Bintliff's product, silky in texture and looking like chocolate pudding, is so superior to other muds that in 1969 it was enshrined in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y.

It is also known as Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud, after Russell Aubrey "Lena" Blackburne, a major league infielder with the Chicago White Sox and coach for the Philadelphia Athletics.

As a coach, Blackburne searched for the perfect rubbing compound for his baseballs. At the time, the mid 1930s, teams used a variety of substances -- tobacco juice, shoe polish, dirt from the baseball field or a combination. Nothing they tried gave the baseballs the right look or feel.

Then one day, according to legend, Blackburne found mud he liked in a body of water, probably in the Northeast.

By 1938, he was supplying the mud to all American League teams. A die-hard American League fan, he refused to sell the mud to National League teams until the mid 1950s.

Since then, every major and minor league team has used only one product -- the Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud.

When Blackburne died in 1968, he left the mud business to his boyhood chum, John Haas. He was the father of Mr. Bintliff's first wife.

Before Haas died, he shared the secrets of the mud with Mr. Bintliff. Those secrets include the source of the mud and whether anything is added before it is packed into plastic containers and sold to professional teams.

While Mr. Bintliff kept quiet about the mud, he did admit in 1999 that sometimes he, Haas and Blackburne deliberately misled sports writers and others who believed they had discovered the secret location.

When possible sites were named, Mr. Bintliff laughed and shook his head.

The Delaware River -- "No."

Chesapeake Bay -- "No."

Lake Okeechobee -- "No."

"How about Lake Seminole, there's mud there," Mr. Bintliff said and then chuckled. "I just threw that out."

Burnett "Burns" Bintliff was born in Riverside, N.J. He said he came here in 1989 with one suitcase to "check out an attraction" and never went back except for an occasional vacation.

The "attraction" was his second wife, Doris, a widow. His first wife, Catherine, died in 1987, the same year Doris Bintliff's first husband died. The two couples had been friends when they lived in the Northeast.

For the most part Mr. Bintliff had turned the mud business over to a son, who retrieves the mud each spring from some body of water, removes the sticks and twigs and prepares it for shipment to every professional club.

To save shipping costs, Mr. Bintliff sometimes hand-carried the mud to teams that train in Pinellas County. One container, a little more than 16 ounces, will usually last a season.

Veterans Cremation & Burial Society, Clearwater, was in charge of his arrangements.

The family suggests contributions to the Burns Bintliff Memorial Fund at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, 10888 126th Ave. N, Largo, FL 33778.

-- Information from Times files was used in this obituary.