And Another Thing CURRENT EVENTS, MLB Rubbing Mud (MONTHLY)

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SKU: CE69-M

And Another Thing CURRENT EVENTS, MLB Rubbing Mud (MONTHLY)

Name: And Another Thing CURRENT EVENTS, MLB Rubbing Mud (MONTHLY)
Brand: One Less Thing
SKU: CE69-M
Availability: InStock

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- - - ABOUT THIS WEEK'S CURRENT EVENT ARTICLE ⤵

⚾ MLB Rubbing Mud: The Secret New Jersey Mud That Powers Major League Baseball

Before every MLB game, a clubhouse attendant spends nearly an hour rubbing six dozen baseballs with mud collected from a secret riverbank in New Jersey. Most fans have never heard of it — but without it, the game doesn't work the same way.

This current event article introduces students to Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud — the single natural resource that every MLB team depends on to prepare baseballs for play — and traces the agricultural and natural resource supply chain hiding inside America's favorite sport.

Students will also explore how forests, rivers, and soil science show up across the entire game — from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box.

Students will explore the topic through:

Why a brand new baseball is considered dangerous straight out of the box, and what the league learned about that problem the hard way in 1920
How Lena Blackburne discovered the mud, what made it outperform every other substance teams had tried, and how one family has supplied all thirty MLB teams for decades
What a 2024 University of Pennsylvania study found about why the mud actually works, including three physical mechanisms no synthetic product has replicated
How rosin powder is harvested from Honduran pine trees, processed into a fine powder, and supplied to every MLB team by a single operation on a San Francisco pier
Why baseball field dirt is a precisely engineered blend of sand, silt, and clay — and why getting those ratios wrong causes real consequences on the field
How the shift from ash to maple bats happened, and why player preference alone doesn't explain why ash nearly disappeared from professional baseball
How the emerald ash borer, a beetle native to Asia first detected in Michigan in 2002, devastated the ash forests that bat manufacturers had relied on for more than a century

This article connects natural resources, supply chains, and agricultural science to the business of professional sports — helping students see how forests, rivers, and soil composition shape the game long before the first pitch is thrown.

A great tie-in for: natural resources and land use, invasive species and forest ecology, supply chain and ag economics, soil science, and current events in agriculture.

Utilizing current events in agriculture is always just another thing to do that you probably don't have time for. We got you.

Hitting those literacy standards just another thing to do? We got you.

The Student Handouts consist of reading passage, an informational graphic, associated vocabulary, comprehension questions, and a word puzzle. All answer keys included.

Use it as a Bellringer Activity, Class Finisher, or save it for a Sub or on those interrupted/shortened schedule days that inevitably come up.

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