Scot--interesting card, thanks for posting it. My short answer is that I do not believe that it is a new pose. I think, for some reason, the ball is light/faded on your card. I think I can see vestiges of it on your scan, but I can't be sure. Typically, ball in/ball out poses are a result of cropping differences, not attempts to eliminate the ball from the field of view.
Some have asked why ball in/ball out differences are classified as new poses at all. After all, they are from the same negative. The reason we classified them as such relate to batting poses. A pose where a player is pictured with the bat in a hitting position, with no ball visible, is denoted as "Bat at ready" in the pose description. A batting pose with the ball visible is denoted as "Strike" in the pose description. Because of this difference in language, we thought it necessary to classify ball in/ball out batting poses as different poses, even if they were from the same negative. For consistence, we extended this to catching poses. Grass in/grass out has no similar description difference, and therefore doesn't need separate pose listings (thank goodness).
Without speaking for Joe, I think neither he nor I love the ball in/ball out additional poses. However, by this point, most have been found so there is little need for further adjustments. As for eliminating them, no need at this point to try to put the genie back into the bottle.
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