Clipping:Baseball manufacture
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| Date Unable to interpret the "4/31/1871" input value as valid date or time component with "Month 4 in year 1871 did not have 31 days in this calendar model." being reported. | Monday, May 1, 1871 |
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| Text | We found that no less than sixteen kinds of balls were in use, from the regulation balls to the children’s or fancy ball, and that prices varied from $18 to 85 cents a dozen. Some half dozen regular manufactories of base-balls alone exist in the City, the largest producing just now seventy-five dozen base-balls per diem. The town of Natick, however, in Massachusetts, is the greatest ball manufactory perhaps in the work, many hundreds of people being employed in producing these articles, and it is not uncommon for houses in this line of business to order from thence 6,000 balls at a time. Their manufacture entails nothing of a very special interest, the inside being of wound rubber, and the wrapping of woolen yarn, save that the winding of the yarn around the ball is principally done by men. One would suppose from the nicely-shaped spheres women make when winding up worsted, they would be most adapted to this kind of work, but it seems to require a certain amount of physical strength which the weaker sex are not endowed with. The cover of horse-hide is put on entirely by women, who use a saddler’s needle and saddler’s thread. Examining a regulation base-ball from a critical point of view, we must declare that as yet it is not up to the standard of workmanship displayed in the English cricket-ball. We are perfectly aware that the requirements of the ball or not the same as in cricket, and that the denseness of this latter ball, resembling a piece of box-wood, and giving a sting to the hand when caught, is not wanted in the base-ball. What we find fault with is that it is not a true sphere, nor has it that uniformity of color which makes the English cricket-balls so beautiful. But Dark, the famous English ball-maker, is an artist in his way, who, according to the best authorities, employs thirty-five workmen all year round, and uses up one and a half tons of worsted, and covers them with the hides of 500 cows and oxen. The method of securing the cover to the English ball with the triple seam, is superior to the American method. This plan is said to have made the fortune of its inventor, a certain John Small... |
| Source | New York Times |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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