Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide, No. 242

Specs Toporcer, a shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, stands with his right toe on the middle of a warm up base located in left field at Sportsman Park in St. Louis, Missouri. His right foot is off to the right side of the base and is also located behind it as Toporcer holds his glove in front of his body around waist level.Toporcer is covering second base while the second baseman fields a baseball hit towards him. There is a baserunner on first base when this occurs, which is why Toporcer is covering second base in an attempt to turn a double play. The second baseman has thrown the baseball to the outside of the bag, or farther away from first base in the image. This has caused Toporcer to place his right toe on the bag and place his left behind the bag. Toporcer is demonstrating the correct position for fielding a baseball thrown to the outside of the bag, but it is much more difficult for him to throw the baseball to first and turn a double play than it would be if the baseball had been thrown to the inside of the bag. His right foot is his pivot foot, but his pivot foot is located on the bag in this slide, which will make it more difficult to throw. Specs has two options; attempt to throw from this position or step off the bag and reposition himself so he can make a clean throw. He would take his foot off the bag and turn his body so that his left foot was in front of his right. The problem with his first option is that the throw may be difficult to make and may be inaccurate, which could cause an error. The problem with the second method is that it would take time for Toporcer to adjust himself, and this time may allow the base runner running to first base to beat the throw to the base. Either way, in an ideal world, the second baseman's throw will be on the inside of the bag rather than on the outside, which would allow the shortstop to make an easy transition from catching the ball to throwing it to first base in an attempt to turn a double play.Yes;George Toporcer was born February 9, 1899 in New York, NY. In 1890, Toporcer's parents moved from Austria-Hungary to the United States. His father struggled to make ends meet, becoming an inventor. From a young age, Toporcer was interested in baseball, but his thick glasses and skinny appearance caused him to not be chosen for a lot of games in high school. In the Major Leagues, Toporcer stood 5'10" but only weighed 135 pounds, showing just how skinny he was. Toporcer's father died when he was in eighth grade and Specs was forced to drop out of school to help his family run the shop his father had owned since they were poor. Toporcer played in some semi-pro leagues, and was signed to the Syracuse Stars in 1920, who were a minor league team for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1921, before even appearing in a minor league game, Toporcer was promoted to the major league team as Milt Stock, their third baseman, claimed he would not be returning for the 1921 season. Toporcer performed very well during spring training in Stock's absence, but Stock returned to the team. He remained with the Cardinals for a portion of the season, but went back to the Minor Leagues near the end of the season because of a lack of playing time. In 1922, Specs performed exceptionally well again in spring training, and attempted to replace Dov Lavan at shortstop since Rogers Hornsby was the second baseman and that was Specs natural position. However, Branch Rickey instead turned Toporcer into a utility bench player, basically meaning that if any of the starters needed a day off or if he ever needed a big clutch hit, he would turn to Specs. Specs only averaged 194 at bats per season, but often came in clutch in the most important times for the team, including when he hit a two run RBI double to help the Cardinals clinch the Pennant in 1926, eventually leading to them winning the World Series. In 1928, Bill McKechnie became the manager of the Cardinals, and he wasn't a fan of Toporcer, causing Toporcer to make very minimal appearances. He was sent to the Class AA Rochester Red Wings minor league affiliate for the Cardinals in 1929. While there, he led the team to four straight circuit championship wins, and won two MVP'S. In 1935, Specs asked for a pay raise and was denied, leading to him joining the Boston Red Sox's AA team, but a severe knee injury in 1936 practically ended his playing career. He coached on numerous minor league teams for the next few years. However, in 1948, Toporcer suffered a retinal detachment, leading to him losing sight in one of his eyes. In 1951, he lost sight in his other eye. His wife became his caretaker, and Specs spent the next few years speaking about the game of baseball. Specs lived until he was 90 years old, where he fell down in his house and suffered serious injuries that led to his death. For biographical information on Leslie Mann, see: https://springfield.as.atlas-sys.com/agents/people/563.I used facial recognition to identify the player in slide 242 as Toporcer.Good condition;This digital image is made from two separate digital scans; one scan of the lantern slide (reflective); one scan of the image (transparecy); the two images were then combined in Photoshop to create the final image