<ul><li>Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified the properties of baseball's famous 'magic mud', used to give pitchers a better grip on the ball.</li><li>Before magic mud, baseballs were treated with substances like water and soil, tobacco juice, or shoe polish, which stained and scratched the ball's surface.</li><li>Lena Blackburne, a third-base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics, discovered the mud near Palmyra, New Jersey, and it became known as Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud.</li><li>The magic mud is a dense suspension of clay, silt, and water, and falls under the category of non-Newtonian fluid, changing viscosity under strain or shearing forces.</li></ul>

What makes baseball’s “magic mud” so special?

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