Spit, mud make for special sauce on every Mariners baseball

Whenever a ball gets fouled off into the Safeco Field stands, a lot of people get pretty excited. Matt Wolcott isn’t one of them.

“I’d watch Ichiro foul off 10, 12 balls at a time. I’m just like ‘Ichiro, what are you doing to me,'” Wolcott said.

His reaction is understandable. After all, it’s been Wolcott’s job for over 30 years to prepare every single ball used in a Mariners game.

“I won’t say it’s the bane of my existence, but it’s a little bit like a mailman. I just know the next day I’m going to have to do this all over again,” he said.

As the Mariners umpire’s clubhouse manager, he gets upwards of 12 dozen balls in game-shape every day.

After 31 seasons, though, he’s certainly got it down.

With his favorite music cranking, Wolcott sits on a couch in the small clubhouse and locker room beneath the stands several hours before gametime.

He’s flanked by boxes of brand new, shiny baseballs on one side, an ever-filling canvas bag of dull, slightly dirty balls on the other.

Like a machine, he methodically grabs a new ball, dips his fingers in a jar of a watery mix of mud, then precisely coats the ball with it and then rubs it down between his palms before tossing it into the bag.

“The main thing is to keep the mud out of the seams of the ball, because obviously the pitchers want the biggest seams they can get” he said. “I just try to make each baseball exactly the same. If it’s too dark, the hitters say they can’t see it. If it’s too light, the pitchers will say the same thing. They don’t want the hitters to see it too much.”

And not just any mud will do. Major League Baseball has an exclusive deal with a guy who gets it from a secret spot in the Delaware River.

“The mud is a really interesting thing. They get it from a special place for a reason. It’s the consistency of like pudding,” Wolcott said.

He makes sure the moisture is just right. If they dry even a little, he’ll add some of his own spit.

It seems crazy to think this still goes on in every stadium, just like it did for the past 100 years or even longer.

“I have no idea why they haven’t built a machine to do this. I guess it’s just the tradition of the game,” he said.

That tradition is taking longer than ever. The Mariners are going through about 10-11 dozen balls per game, about three dozen more than just a few years ago, according to Wolcott.

That’s in large part because every time a ball hits the dirt, it’s taken out of action.

Despite all his experience and dedication, sometimes he just can’t please anybody. There was the time newly-inducted Hall of Famer Randy Johnson had a horrible outing, giving up a number of runs and getting chased from the game early on. And when he ran into Wolcott in the clubhouse, the frustrated pitcher gave him an earful.

“He had some words for me about how light the baseballs were and I need to reconsider how I rub them up. And all I said was ‘Randy, of course, for you, whatever you need.’ And, obviously, I rub the baseballs the same exact way.”

So you’d figure if the Big Unit was upset, the hitters had to be happy, right? Not so much. It wasn’t long after when designated hitter Edgar Martinez came in, after a disappointing night, and had the opposite complaint. For Edgar, the balls were too dark.

“How could I hit those balls when they’re as dark as they are?” Edgar asked.

Wolcott thought for a moment about his response before throwing Edgar a high, hard one.

“Edgar, you know what? The other team seemed to see them just fine, didn’t they,” he said.

But for most of the past 31 seasons, Wolcott hasn’t heard a whole lot about the balls, which is exactly the way he wants it.

He figures during that time, he’s handled over 400,000 of them. What’s even more impressive? He hasn’t missed a single game during his career, meaning he’s rubbed up every ball played at Safeco Field.

So if you’re ever lucky enough to catch a foul ball or home run, Wolcott hopes you’ll keep in mind his handiwork, and your hygiene.

“The fan doesn’t know that every ball they catch, I’ve spit on,” he laughed.

“I tell them go home and wash your hands afterwards,” he said as he spit on another of the 12 dozen he’ll rub up before the game.