Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-05-12
HOW BAsEBALLs ARE MADE.
Five Million Balls Made Annually TO
Use in National Games,

the official league baseballs. 1t has
often been n matter of wonder for the
statistical mind just where all the balls
come from which are batted around
fields in all parts of the country. One
OF the large factories where the great
er number of the s1.25, official sort
are made. employs year in and year
out 1900 hands, and it makes year in
and year out 1,200 dozen balls a day
Thus its annual output is close upon
5 900, 900 baseballs year
description of the making of all
these balls-a glimpse at the inside of
the big five story, red brick baseball
factory, with it's 1000 young men.
young girls and boys at work, is given
as follows:
Where the Balls Are Made.
The first room in the factory is the
winding room. This room is as big as
a concert hall, and running UP and
down it in straight lines are machines,
each about the size of a child. Before
each machine boy sits. He has on
his right and on his left a wooden
shelf. Upon his right hand shelf are
balls of the purest Para rubber, one
these balls one at time and puts them,
about them, more regularly than
hands could do. a very strong and pure
quality of wooden yarn of blush hue.
The yarn is of the thickness called
four ply; 1t is about as thick, that is,
as straw. After enough has been
wound about the Para rubber center
to make a ball two inches in diameter,
the machine stops of its own accord
and the boy removes the little ball and
places it upon the shelf at his left.
Then he puts in the machine anothe"
Para rubber centerpiece, and the in
strument begins again to wind it's
wooden yarn about the rubber This
boy and his machine make between
them little balls. half rubber and half
yarn, two inches in diameter. That is
their whole duty. Fifty boys and fifty
machines do this work with clock
like regularity in the big room. There
are a half dozen smaller boys who go.
to and fro with baskets gathering up
the two inch balls as they are finished.
These boys take them to a young man
over in one corner, young man called
a Clipper
The dipper stands beside q vat, the
size OF bathtub. that is filled with a
fluid that resembles water precisely.
In this vat he dips the balls. and then
stands them aside for little while
TO dry. The weak looking fluid is in re-
ality powerful plastic composition,
or liquid cement. and it is this compo-
sition which insures to the balls a per-
ynY,tc
them from being batted out of shape.
The balls now go to fifty other boys
and fifty other machines. These ma
chimes are like the first ones, only they
are differently regulated. They wind
upon the balls a second inch of finer
wooden yarn, and the balls are dipped
again in the strong cement and after
a second drying. they are ready to be
covered
The Cover Put On.
Their covers are made of an alum
tanned horsehide. that is as soft and
white as gloves men wear at night with
their evening clothes This hide is
nearly one eighth of an inch thick
One horse supplies only eighteen ball
covers. for only the strongest and best
portions of each hide is used. AS the
hide comes to the factory from the
tanners 1t is staked. To knee
stake hide is to get all the stretch,
all of the elasticity out OF it. robust
young man lays it across an upright
plank or stake, that is high, and
he draws it back and forth; he bears
down on it as hard as he can; he
it to its utmost limit. Were
hides not knee staked in this way, the
covers made from them would become
loose and wrinkled after they were
sewed upon the balls.
The machines that cut out the COW
ers are huge. They are 10 feet in
height, and the massive looking iron
work in them weighs many tons. Each
machine has a man sitting before it.
and, each, with two strokes, cuts out
the two covers of a ball and at the
same time perforates the covers
edges. Each cover is in the shape of
a figure s. The machines cut out these
figures as a woman with a tumbler,
or with any sharp edged circular in
strument, cuts cookies out of sheets of
dough. sharp S-shaped iron punch
descends upon the white horsehide and
bites out OF 1t the half covers. The
edges Of the punch have little needles
set close together in them 1t is these
needles piercing the cover, that make
the perforation for the stitches. The
balls are stitched by men, for women
are not strong enough TO do this work.
The thread used is cotton, for neither
silk nor linen thread will serve for base
ball sewing This is because the alum
used in the tanning of the covers would
rot silk, and because batting would
break the fibers of linen. Thus balls
sewed with silk or linen would be
ripped apart ere three or four innings
We're played. The men sit on saddles,
astride, and two wooden arms hold the
balls firmly before him. They fit on a
pair of covers pull them tight with
tweezers, clamp them together with !
staples and then sew them with very |
strong thread of red or blue, thru
the perforations made in their edges |
by the machines. After the sewing a
balls seams are rough. Therefore it's
rolled in a circle feet in diameter till
1t has traversed six or seven miles. II
energies thence quite smooth-a per-
feet ball now. ready to be stamped,
put upon the market
Thirty Minutes Process.
1t takes the factory thirty minutes |
to make one s1.25 baseball from it's
clean thru to its packing |
Each ball is five ounces in weight. 8 |
inches in circumference and 3 inches
in diameter. The various machines
keep these dimensions regular, and an
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