Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1911-06-02
BASEBALL HISTORY.
Alfred J. Reach and Fifty Years of Base
ball as a game and Business.
Continued

(COntlnued.)
''Then the change from the large five
to six ounce ball of the old days to the
modern regulation ball, and the in
creased speed of the pitch which fol-
lowed the legalizing of the throwing
of the ball to the bat, made necessary
the introduction of defensive parapher-
MALTA, for it was discovered that hard
blow from a baseball would kill. And
so Harvard College ball player in
vented the catcher's mask, a profess
sional umpire introduced the cathhers
breast pad, and sporting goods firm
added the big mitts used by catchers."
When it was learned that Gal" Reach
had gone into the manufacture of the
new baseball equipment, his old friends
of the diamond rallied to his support,
and from its humble beginning In 1866,
the Reach business grew rapidly, early
moving it's quarters from Chestnut
Street TO Eighth Street, then to Elev-
enth and Market Streets, and finally
10 it's present location at Tulip and
Palmer Streets, where there was ample
room for future growth. In 1881 Mr..
Reach took as partner Benjamin F.
Shibe, man who had made life long
study of baseball, and the two men
aided in later years by their sons)
have made numerous developments in
gloves and balls, each development i'm
proving the quality of the game made
possible with the new equipment, and,
what is more important, bringing the
cost of the goods down to such a level
that even the poorest youth in this
broad country now finds it possible to
buy some kind of ball and equipment,
and enjoy the greatest game in the
world A big force works necessarily
at the machines that wind the thou
sands of balls turned out weekly,
while others sew, stamp, bex, and ship
them.
Probably the most interesting feat
ure of the works is the pattern room,
where are filed away in cases patterns
for gloves worn by nearly every league
player of note. In this department,
the players are fitted in the same man
ner that a tailor fits for clothes, and
after the desired glove is made the pat
terms are carefully hled away, so that
whenever a man desires another glove
made, no matter in what part of the
world he may be, the order is speedily
filled.
AS the Reach Company was graually
building up to its present high position
in the past fifty years, so the game it.
self was undergoing just the same pro-
cess of evolution from a makeshift SER
les of petty games NOTABLY FOUNDERS
and town balD, until it became really
national in it's scope. Although it
owes something to FOUNDERS and town
ball, both of which are English impor-
tations, baseball is a purely American
game, and in its present advanced and
scientific form il represents the work of
fifty years of selection. From the form
lessness of rounder and town ball was
derived the idea, but the changes and
all the product of Amer
lean brains, have been carried so far
that baseball has gone as much ahead
of the game that suggested it, as the
has carried the artof travel
ON wheels beyond the humble carts OF
infancy.
1t was Harry Wright, former not
able amateur, who, as captain of the
famous Cincinnati Red Stockings, a
reused the apathetic American public
to the possibilities of baseball as pro-
fessional sport. When he went to Gin
.;nuati. in 1867, he carried with him
the idea of professional team. He
gathered the best local players, added
The hast he could hire in New York and
and Brooklyn, and SET out in 1869 on a
triumphant tour of all the cities from
BOSTON to San Francisco, making a
a.ord which remains to this day uuap-
and unattainable in base