The Baseball

by Zack Hample

  1903 The American League adopted the foul-strike rule, and the average team put four to six new balls into play per game.

  1905 As American League hitters adjusted to the foul-strike rule (while also using a ball that was dead by today’s standards), only three players finished the season with a batting average above .300.

  1906 The New York Sun estimated that an average of nine balls per game were used in the major leagues and that some teams used just 40 dozen balls for the entire season.

  1908 When a batter hit the ball exceptionally hard, the rubber core sometimes cracked. According to Sporting Life magazine, this occurred on a weekly basis and “burst not only the multitude of yarn and wrappings, but the horsehide cover as well.” This obviously wasn’t a problem for the Cardinals and Superbas6 on August 4, 1908: the two teams managed to play an entire game at Brooklyn’s Washington Park with just one ball.

  1909 On June 18, 1909, Ben Shibe patented the cork-centered ball. In his patent application, he wrote, “The object of my invention is to produce a playing ball … having a resilient central core … upon which the layers of yarn may be wound under greater tension, whereby greater compactness results.” Six weeks later, the Reach company (which had worked with Shibe since 1881) was granted the patent.

  1910 When the season started, balls with rubber cores were still being used. The public had no idea that the cork-centered ball even existed until Reach ran an ad on May 12, 1910, that said: “Big Improvement Made in Base Balls. A. J. Reach & Company Patents a Cork Core, supplanting the rubber center, and producing the finest ball ever known. More rigid and durable, will absolutely keep its shape. The Perfect Ball at Last.” Al Reach was so proud of this new ball—“It is the greatest triumph we have ever achieved,” he said—and was so eager to see it in action, that he secretly arranged for the ball to be used in the World Series. Offense suddenly increased. No one knew why. But everyone seemed to like it. The secret was so well kept that American League president Ban Johnson didn’t even find out until December 8, 1910. That’s when Reach ran an ad in The Sporting News that boldly stated: “The Cork Centered Ball Was the Official ball of the World Series.”

  1911 The cork-centered ball was used by both leagues throughout the season, and the number of .300 hitters doubled from 15 (in 1910) to 30 (in 1911). Because the ball was so lively, pitchers came up with freak deliveries and trick pitches, like the spitball and scuffball, in order to stay competitive. What made the ball so lively was that it was wound tighter. It actually had to be tighter: while the old rubber core was dense and heavy, the new cork core was just as big, yet weighed much less. Therefore, in order to manufacture the new ball according to specifications—it still had to weigh at least 5 ounces but couldn’t be bigger than 9.25 inches in circumference—the missing weight from the core was reclaimed by cramming more yarn into the ball. This could only be done by winding it tighter. The public accused Reach of tampering with the ball, but the hitters weren’t complaining. When asked about the new ball, Cardinals Hall of Fame catcher Roger Bresnahan said, “You can make a home run in the ninth inning just as easily as in the first.” Bresnahan wasn’t the only player questioned. On August 28, 1911, the editor of Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide sent a letter to every player in the National League, asking them to share their views on the ball. The players were asked these seven questions:

  Has the ball increased or decreased batting?

  What percentage is the increase or decrease?

  Is the ball too lively?

  Is it well thought of by other players?

  Is it easier to handle than the old ball?

  Can it be thrown as far and accurately as the old ball?

  Can it be thrown more accurately and farther than the old ball?

  According to the survey, 98 percent of players thought batting had increased 10 to 15 percent, 95 percent said the ball was not too lively, 98 percent reported that it was well thought of by other players, and 75 percent claimed it was easier to handle and could be thrown farther and more accurately. Tom Shibe, the older of Ben’s two sons, correctly predicted that the cork center was “here to stay.” Liveliness aside, this was the first season that the National League ball had a combination of red and black stitching; from 1878 to 1910 it had been all black.

  1912 Technology had improved so much that a single machine could wind several hundred baseballs per hour. The world’s biggest baseball factory, located in Philadelphia, churned out 24,000 balls per day, including balls for the National and American Leagues, dozens of minor leagues, and cheap balls for amateur and recreational use. The covers, however, were still stitched onto the balls by hand. Employees sat at long tables with vises that held the balls in place. Cheap balls were stitched by young women, usually 18 to 20 years old, who completed each ball in eight or nine minutes. High-end balls were stitched by men, who occupied a separate floor and worked slightly faster. The best balls were then sent down to the first floor, where they were stamped by hand, wrapped in tin foil, and packed into pasteboard boxes by a machine. Each major league team used roughly 100 dozen balls this season—a number that was rising because fans were keeping more and more baseballs that flew into the stands. Tom Shibe was well aware of the developing souvenir craze. “The losing of many balls in the stands,” he said, “has a decided effect on the number of balls we sell, and therefore is an interesting sidelight on the manufacturing of them.”

  1914 The Federal League played the first of its two major league seasons and used the Victor ball. The American League hit 148 home runs, the National League 267, and the Federal League 295—so people suspected that the Victor ball (which was made by a company owned by Spalding) was extra-lively. National and American League teams paid $15 per dozen balls and used more than 40,000 over the course of the season (including balls used during batting practice and Spring Training). The Washington Senators paid $1,500 for balls, the least in either league, while the Boston Braves spent the most at $4,675.

  1915 On July 21, 1915, a 20-year-old pitcher named Babe Ruth hit a mammoth home run that traveled approximately 470 feet over the right-field bleachers at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. The ball cleared a major thoroughfare called Grand Boulevard and nearly struck a building on the other side. This home run was one of just 14 long balls hit by the Red Sox all season.

  1916 Up until this time, balls had to be removed from their boxes with the seals broken by the umpire in front of the two teams’ captains. This rule had made it almost impossible for people to tamper with the balls—to slip “ringers” or phony balls into play—but fans were glad to see it go because the ground behind home plate became littered with boxes after the ump tore them open.7 Later in the season, Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss disassembled a Victor ball and discovered that it had a two-ounce rubber core. (This was twice the legal limit, but because the Federal League had folded a year earlier, nothing could be done about it.)

  1917 Recent Cubs owner Charles Webb Murphy incorrectly predicted that a material called “ivory nut” (which was used to make buttons) would replace the cork centers in baseballs. Lots of people were speculating about the composition of the ball because the government was starting to commandeer various materials for World War I, including high-grade wool yarn. The Federal Bureau of Standards tested different manufacturers’ baseballs to see which ones were best for the army. The Bureau perhaps should have focused on finding better balls for the Washington Senators, who hit just four home runs all season, but inferior yarn was only part of the problem. Offense also lagged because of all the doctored balls and trick pitches that were being thrown; batters had to choke up on the bat, sometimes as much as 10 inches, and take shorter swings to increase their chances of making solid contact. It also didn’t help that most teams played in cavernous ballparks. Braves Field, the first stadium with more than 40,000 seats, was one of the largest at the time. The distance from home plate to the center-field fence was 550 feet.

  1918 Offense reached an all-time low, esp
ecially in the American League, which combined for 96 home runs and saw four of its eight teams fail to reach double digits. The Senators once again went deep just 4 times, while the St. Louis Browns hit 5 homers, the White Sox 8, and the Indians 9. In the National League, where teams slugged 139 homers, the Brooklyn Dodgers scored just 360 runs and posted a miserable .291 on-base percentage—both major league lows. The Senators, it should be noted, made up for their weak hitting by leading the major leagues with a 2.18 earned run average and finishing the season 16 games over .500. Sadly, but not surprisingly, fans lost interest as pitching dominated the sport, and major league attendance plunged.8

  1919 The First World War was over, better materials became available for baseballs, and the competitive balance was restored. The American League out-homered the National League for the first time in 13 years, this time by a 240-to-207 margin. Every team in the majors hit at least 17 homers. Attendance more than doubled. Things were going well until season’s end, when several White Sox players accepted money from gamblers and intentionally lost the World Series to the Reds. As details of the “Black Sox” scandal emerged, the public’s faith in the sport was nearly destroyed.

  1920 Babe Ruth played his first season in New York and single-handedly hit more home runs than all but two entire teams. He finished the year with 54 homers, a staggering total that nearly doubled his own record and caused rampant speculation that the ball was juiced. When sportswriters began to claim that the ball was responsible for Ruth’s accomplishments, a group of fans banded together in his support. They called themselves “The Friends of Ruth” and made several successful attempts to snag his home run balls. The fans then sent these balls to the Bureau of Standards to find out if they differed from the 1917 batch. Eventually the Bureau declared a decisive victory for Ruth’s fans—the balls had not changed—but there was one small problem: it wasn’t true. In 1917 the Bureau had tested brand-new balls; in 1920 they tested game-used home run balls that had probably been batted around for an inning or two and therefore appeared to be deader than they really were. Although this difference may have evened out the test results, the 1920 ball was, by most other accounts, hopped up. Hall of Fame outfielder Edd Roush said the livelier ball forced him to play so deep in the field that for the first time in his career he had to relay the ball to reach home plate. Some people, including Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby, insisted that the American League was using an extra-lively ball. Given the fact that the American League hit 108 more home runs than the National League, this theory was hard to disprove. Hornsby said he’d seen a ball from each league get cut open, and he claimed that the contents were different. Other people simply attributed the leaguewide power surge—a 41 percent increase in home runs—to Ruth himself, arguing that his success inspired other players to swing for the fences. But everyone agreed that Ruth’s emergence came at the best possible time: in the wake of the Black Sox scandal, it kept fans excited about baseball and pushed attendance to an all-time high.

  Offense plunged during World War I when high-quality yarn was scarce and doctored balls were prevalent.

  1921 The juiced-ball debate exploded in 1921 when the number of home runs jumped 49 percent. Halfway through the season, F. C. Lane, the editor-in-chief of Baseball magazine, wrote letters to various baseball executives to get their take on it. “In my opinion,” replied Jim Dunn, the owner and president of the Indians, “there is no question but what the balls in use this year are much livelier than in former years. I am unable to say whether it is on on [sic] account of the superior quality of yarn which is now being used, or an increased amount of rubber, but the fact is that the great increase in hitting is evidence that the ball is livelier.” Baseballs were, in fact, being wound with a more resilient grade of Australian wool yarn—a modification that Ban Johnson admitted: “It permits of a firmer winding, a harder ball, and naturally one that is more elastic,” he wrote in a letter to Lane. Braves owner George W. Grant believed that offense had increased because of Ray Chapman’s death—that the subsequent ban on freak deliveries made hitters more willing to dig into the batter’s box. (More Chapman fallout: because the tragedy was caused by a dirty baseball, teams were ordered to keep new balls in play. Pitchers complained that the new balls were too slick, and batters complained that the white horsehide created a glare, so the umpires started rubbing dirt on them. Oh, the irony!) With apparently no glaring differences, National and American League balls were now being made at different factories. After visiting the Spalding factory, National League president John Heydler said, “I found that the methods in use were precisely the same as heretofore. Only the wool yarn was a better quality and in my opinion more firmly bound.” Lane visited both factories and reported only one difference between the two: National League balls were made with red and black stitching; American League balls were made with red and blue. In September 1921, Baseball magazine ran a feature story called “Has the ‘Lively’ Ball Revolutionized the Game?” The subtitle dug deeper and posed the following question: “The Prolonged Batting Carnival—The Slump in Pitching and Base Stealing—Is the Lively Ball Responsible for These Grave Changes?” According to the two manufacturers, the answer was no. A Reach spokesman said, “To explain the great advance in hitting this season you must blame something else beside[s] the baseball in use in either league.” Spalding issued a similar statement, suggesting that “the remedy lies rather in revising the rules so as to favor the pitcher.” As the debate persisted, another theory emerged: during the war the highly skilled baseball stitchers left their jobs to serve the country; after the war they returned to the factories and made better balls.

  1922 Around this time two brothers named Walter and Edward Hubbert, who had once worked for Reach as baseball stitchers, formed a business arrangement with Spalding and began stitching balls in their home in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. It didn’t take long before other members of the family began stitching, and eventually the neighbors joined in. After several years there were so many stitchers that the Hubberts built an extension onto the house and later opened their own factory.

  1923 Only six pitchers finished the season with an ERA under 3.00, down from 64 pitchers in 1915. While most people were enjoying the offense, others wanted the ball to be deadened.

  1924 The National League used 43,224 balls.

  1925 As offense soared yet again, Baseball magazine denounced the “blind orgy of hitting” in the feature story “Should the Lively Ball Be Abolished?” John Heydler didn’t think so. “I do not see how there can be any complaint about this year’s baseball,” he said. “Every ball which leaves the factory is as perfect as human intelligence can devise.” Ban Johnson disagreed with his fellow league president. He conceded that the ball was lively, admitted that there were too many home runs, and suggested zoning the outfield so that the batter wouldn’t automatically get credit for a homer just because the ball went over the fence. (This idea was quickly shot down.) Reds president August Herrmann felt that “baseball would be improved if the ball now in use would be made less lively,” but Connie Mack disagreed. “I am not at all in favor of having the baseball changed from what it is at the present time,” said the legendary manager and owner of the Athletics. “The crowds which turned out to see Ruth is an indication that the people want to see batting, so give them batting.” Mack made a valid point—baseball was a form of entertainment—but there were batters who didn’t even want to see so much batting. Brooklyn’s first baseman, Jacques Fournier, who had led the National League with 27 homers in 1924, said, “I don’t think the ball this year is any livelier than it was last season, but it’s altogether too lively. It has completely upset baseball standards. The lively ball handicaps fielding and it is sometimes positively dangerous to infielders as well as to the pitcher.” As the debate raged on, Heydler arranged for a Columbia University chemistry professor named Harold A. Fales to test three baseballs: one from 1914, another from 1923, and a third from 1925. Fales measured and weighed the balls,
dropped them from a height of 13.5 feet, and finally cut them open to inspect the contents. Aside from the fact that the 1923 ball bounced 2.04 inches higher than the other two, and that the two older balls weighed a quarter of an ounce less than the new ball—a result attributed to natural aging and shrinkage—Fales didn’t report any significant differences. When the test results were published, an anonymous player was quoted as saying, “They give one baseball to represent a season’s output.… The chemistry professor cut it open and found rubber and yarn. What did he expect to find, dynamite? Nobody ever said the ball was made of different materials.” In November 1925, Sportlife magazine ran a huge article titled “Secret of the ‘Rabbit Ball’ Exposed,” but the way the magazine “exposed” the secret wasn’t exactly scientific. (In case you’re wondering, “rabbit ball” is an antiquated term for “juiced ball.”) The reporter, a prolific baseball writer named Frederick G. Lieb, cut two baseballs in half with a circular saw. One ball was from 1912, the other was brand-new, and—surprise surprise!—the stuffing in the newer ball expanded more. Here’s how Lieb explained his groundbreaking discovery:

  Any woman, who has handled yarn to any extent, knows the “deadness” of an inferior grade. The housewife has her own way of putting it. She says it doesn’t “fluff up” like the superior qualities. By that she means that when a good quality of yarn is compressed and then suddenly released, it will “fluff up” or “spring” far more than the inferior grade. In that “fluffing up” you have the secret of the lively ball.

  Julian Curtiss, the president of Spalding, insisted that the balls weren’t being made differently. “There has been altogether too much blame placed on the baseball during this home-run epidemic,” he said. “Ever since Babe Ruth became the center of the baseball spotlight through his home run efforts it was only natural that the other players would try and duplicate his performances.… If the players played as they did in the old days the lively ball charge would die.”