E28: The Baseball: Leather, Stitches & Switch Pitchers

The baseball is the only “player” guaranteed to show up for every pitch, and it has a bigger impact on the game than most fans realize. We start with a quick curveball: the switch pitcher, one of the rarest roles in MLB, and the hilarious logic trap that led to the Venditte Rule when a pitcher and a switch hitter kept countering each other. It’s a perfect reminder that baseball’s rulebook often follows the strangest real-world moments. 

From there, we follow the ball itself through baseball history, from homemade mid-1800s designs with inconsistent sizes and bizarre cores to the push for standardization once the National League formed in 1876. We dig into the Spalding era, why dead ball conditions happened when soft balls stayed in play too long, and how changes like cork centers and tighter wool winding helped fuel higher offense and the infamous “rabbit ball” feel. 

We also get specific about modern MLB baseball manufacturing: Rawlings’ official factory in Turrialba, Costa Rica, the multi-state supply chain that feeds it, and why the iconic 108 double stitches are still done by hand. Then we connect safety and fairness to the ball’s condition, including the Ray Chapman tragedy that accelerated cleaner ball practices, the league’s crackdown on sticky substances like Spider Tack, and the one old-school exception that’s still required, Lena Blackburne’s baseball rubbing mud. Finally, we talk humidors, why every stadium now locks balls up underground, and the lawsuit that helps explain why a caught foul ball can stay in your hands. 

If you like baseball trivia, MLB rules, and the hidden engineering behind every game, subscribe, share this with a baseball friend, and leave us a review so more fans can find the show.

Email us at fungosandfastballs@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome And Trivia Teaser

Jerry 0:00

Hello, listeners, and welcome to Fungos and Fastballs. We so typically focus on individual players in games that we thought we'd concentrate today on the Unsun hero who appears in every game. Yes, we're talking about the baseball itself. And with a first pitch to open on folks that can chuck said ball quite uniquely, the switch pitcher. But first, let's open with our trivia question. Who is the only person who's ever been inducted in both the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Stay tuned until the end for that answer.

Switch Pitchers And The Venditti Rule

Jerry 0:40

So on to our first pitch, which will focus today on the most uncommon type of player, the switch pitcher. The switch pitcher? Or you mean the switch hitter? Brooke. For those who can see on video, she's wearing her Biloxi Shuckers hat. Yes. No, I mean switch pitcher. Something rarely seen in the major leagues, but quite interesting. As the term indicates, a switch pitcher can pitch with either hand. Now going back to the early days of baseball, some pitchers are listed as occasionally pitching with the opposite arm, including in the 1880s, Larry Cochran and the wonderfully named Elton Icebox Chamberlain. Ugh, I still love that nickname. Yep. Most times these pitchers switched just a few times or a few innings with their opposite hand. Good old Icebox, he came up in episode three when we went over Pud Galvin. On the 20th century, in the major leagues at least, no one has switch pitched a game until Greg A. Harris for the Expos in 1995.

Brooke 1:47

Since he played in the National League, and it was before the designated hitter for that league, was he also a switch hitter?

Jerry 1:55

He was indeed.

Brooke 2:58

Actually, I saw on eBay Rawlings makes a glove for switch pitchers. Ooh, a potential bucks.

Jerry 3:04

Ah, a potential purchase for my baseball knickknack shot. It's not going to fit up there.

Brooke 3:10

But how did he do overall as a player?

Jerry 3:13

Well, he had he had a lot of success in various minor league stints, but he lacked the velocity that a lot of major league teams were looking for in that day. I did chuckle at the news headline, though, when he debuted. It said, amphibious pitcher confuses hitter.

Brooke 3:28

Amphibious? He's did he swim all the way to the plate?

Jerry 3:32

Ah, you're such a kidder. Now you know they should have said ambividess.

Brooke 3:36

Ambidextrous.

Jerry 3:37

Now, at one point, though, when facing a switch hitter on the minor league Staten Island Yankees, uh Venditti changed hands, then the batter wound up switching to the other side of the plate. So Venditti switched arms again, and the batter changed. Eventually this went on and the ump has had to intervene. But this was a unique situation. So of course, Major League Baseball came up with the Venditti rule, technically rule 5.07 F, stating a switch pitcher must choose an arm to pitch with each batter before the at-bat starts, and then stay with that arm at least until the next batter. No one else has switched hitch switch pitched. Tough to say. No one else has switched pitched in the majors since. Some pitchers, like you Darvish with the Padres, have practiced pitching with off-arms to try and keep them strong, but has not switched pitched in a game. And the Mariners drafted a switch pitcher in 2024 now with the Cardinals organization, but he hasn't appeared in the major leagues.

Brooke 4:40

Well, that was an unexpected nugget of baseball trivia. Shall we start the episode?

Jerry 4:46

Sure.

Brooke 4:46

All right.

Why A Baseball Factory Matters

Jerry 4:47

Hello and welcome to Fungos and Fastballs, the podcast of baseball history and trivia. I'm your host, Jerry Dyans. Let's jump into today's episode. So I run a fantasy baseball league. My team is called the Fargo Fungos. I love that alliteration. And my wife and our beloved producer gave her fantasy team a name that gave me some ideas for today's subject. Brooke took over the team when she was co-managing with our son and uh changed the name to something clever: the Turialba volcanoes. That's right. Oddly, I'm not sure anybody when she came up with this name bothered to look up what she might mean by naming her team that way.

Brooke 5:31

I know. No appreciation from what's the case. I thought it was very clever. Thank you.

Jerry 5:35

Tell us about it.

Brooke 5:35

All right. Well, back then on our fantasy team, all the teams have a city name and then some other word with it. And so I needed a location. I love beaches, I love palm trees, and I went on the internet and somehow I saw Rawlings baseballs were made in Costa Rica. So I ran with that. Uh the town name, as you said, is Torialba. I noticed there was an active volcano right in the city. So boom, the Torre Alba volcanoes was born. What I missed was it's not on a beach in Costa Rica. It is smack in the middle of the rainforest. Not a beach in sight.

Jerry 6:15

No, you're right. Torialba is in Central America and Costa Rica. And in that town is the only official Major League Baseball factory. Rawlings, the official manufacturer of Major League Baseball since 1977, has its baseball factory there. It's been there since the company moved the factory from Haiti in the 1980s. I don't believe the Rawling factory is open for public tours. It is not.

Brooke 6:40

It is pretty well protected.

Jerry 6:42

Yeah, so I'm not sure Touri Alba is on my short list of vacation spots, even though the pictures of the landscape seem quite beautiful.

Brooke 6:49

Rainforest and snakes and bugs. I don't think it's your cup of tea, babe.

Jerry 6:53

Yeah, they have like flying snakes in those rainforests. Flying snakes drop from tree to tree. It's pretty creepy. I'm sadly old enough to remember having Spaulding baseballs as a kid. Spaulding was the official uh Major League Baseball manufacturer of baseballs from 1876 to 1976. Now, founder Albert Goodwill Spaulding, you have to include his middle name there, was such a major figure in the early days of Major League Baseball. He has been referenced in a few episodes. We'll probably have to have a separate episode on him alone and his role in baseball. So, yes, long opening story to say that today on fungos and fastballs, we will focus on the baseball itself.

Homemade Baseballs Become Standardized

Jerry 7:34

Now, initially in the mid-1800s, there were no standardizations of baseball. They had a rubber core, typically from old melted shoes, uh wrapped in yarn and leather. Now, sometimes for the core they would use rocks or even nuts. I even read some balls even use fish eyes. Pitchers actually made their own balls, which seems like a pretty cool skill to have. There were variations in size between balls back then. Currently, a ball has a circumference between nine and nine and a quarter inches, but back in the mid-19th century, a ball could vary anywhere from eight to eleven inches in circumference. Quite the difference. But despite these guidelines, pitchers still varied the amount of rubber in their balls and how tightly they were wound when they made them. And that affected how fast and far they traveled. In our old vintage baseball episode, number 25, check it out, we learned that teams played with the 1860s lemon peel baseball. Single piece of leather, leather, sewn together with four steams at a cross pattern. It looked like a lemon peel. These balls were lighter, softer, and had that darker leather color.

Brooke 8:48

Yeah, during that episode, Tom Big Bat told us the balls back then were expensive and not made in bulk. So you had one per game. You hit a foul, you went and got your ball. You hit a home run, well, I assume the person who didn't catch your home run had to go get your ball.

Jerry 9:06

Yeah, it reminds me of those uh local teams in the movie EFUS. Eva, exactly. They ran out of the ball. Finally, in 1876, 150 years ago, the National League was created, and along with that came the standardization of baseballs. The aforementioned, good word, Albert Spaulding, who got his start as a pitcher and made his own balls, got the National League to adopt his ball as the official ball of the sport. Now, the American League became a major league in 1901, but prior to that it was a minor league called the Western League, and the enterprising Spaulding even became the sole creator of the American League baseballs. Now, they were slightly different in quality, a little more lively off the bat. Interesting, the National and American leagues would have slightly different balls all the way until the 1930s. It's actually interesting to see how the changes in the construction of baseballs changed the game when it came to offenses, like the wrapping of the ball by pitchers. Early in the 20th century, balls were softer and they were not replaced over the course of games, so they had to unravel a bit as the game went on, leading to less hits, lower scores, contributing to the dead ball of baseball that we've discussed in the past.

Brooke 10:22

Yeah, and if it were a rainy day and the ball would get wet and it would get mushy, or if you had a pitcher that was a really good spitter, they could continuously spit on the ball throughout the game, and again it would affect the ball and it would sort of turn to mush, making it hard to get a solid hit.

Jerry 10:40

During the early days of baseball, when you know, right after it from rounders history, they actually used balls of paper for baseball. And during wet days, they just disintegrated. Yeah, that's

Cork Cores And The Rabbit Ball

Jerry 10:52

paper.

Brooke 10:52

Just hit it and it's that would be a good story. It's like confetti on the field.

Jerry 10:56

I can just see these early guys. Let's try let's try paper. No, that's not gonna work.

Brooke 11:00

Ignore.

Jerry 11:00

Just kidding. Ignore that last paragraph, folks. But hey, everything else is it may get cut if we run long. In 1910 for the World Series, Spaulding changed the core from rubber to a more durable cork core, and baller balls were able to be hit farther and faster, leading to a bump in offense in the 1910s compared to the decade before. Now pitchers adjusted. They had different strategies, they continued to muck up and dirty up the ball, making it harder to see. But in the 1920s, Spaulding introduced Australian wool to wrap around the core. And this allowed tighter winding and more bounce. Now, this type of ball was called the rabbit ball, and it jumped off the bat. That, along with some other rule changes, like the banning of the spitball, definitely contributed to players like Babe Ruth lighting it up. In 1925, Milton B. Reach patented a cushion cork center with cork surrounded by black rubber, surrounded by a layer of red rubber. Sort of like a turduccin. That's right, the turduccin of baseball.

Brooke 12:06

Turkey, the duck, and the chicken, yeah. That's right, the chicken inside.

Jerry 12:11

In 1934, the National League and American League compromised on a standard ball with the cushion cork center covered in rubber, wrapped in yarn, and covered in a horse hide cover. Since then, baseballs really haven't changed that much, except the change to synthetic rubber in World War II and the change from horse hide to cowhide, typically from Holstein cattle, trivialer, uh, as uh in 1974. Now, rubber availability could be an issue, especially during World War II, uh, because rubber was used for the war effort, and supply of baseball rubber went down as the major source, the Dutch East Indies, was taken over by Japan. Spaulding, in response, would use rubber substitute called balada from the dried juices of tropical trees. It was introduced in 1943, but the ball came off much deader and actually would hurt batters' hands when they made contact. Spaulding denied any kind of changes there, but it was pretty clear after one week, the American American League average dipped from 257 and one year later to 210. The entire American

War-Time Rubber And A Dead Ball

Jerry 13:20

League had three home runs in the whole week. So the general manager of the Cincinnati Red, Warren Giles, took a dozen new Balata balls and dropped them off a roof one by one, compared with a bunch of old balls. And the 1942 balls bounced 13 feet, the new Balata balls nine and a half feet. Uh disproving Spaulding's, you know, hey, there's no nothing to see here. Everything's the same.

Brooke 13:46

Yeah. Well, luckily they all dropped at the same rate. Gotta love gravity.

Jerry 13:49

Yeah.

Brooke 13:50

Thank you, Galileo.

Jerry 13:51

Exactly. Well, happily by the next season in 1944, synthetic rubber was now being manufactured to a significant extent, and that created a rebound in offense.

Brooke 14:03

Spaulding produced every MLB baseball from 1876 to 1976, a hundred years. But after the contract ran out, Spaulding had asked for an increase in the price, and the MLB switched to Rawlings. Now, a little bit of history with the company Spaulding. They had actually re acquired Rawlings in 1955, and they were using the Rawlings plants to produce the baseball with the Spaulding label on it. But in the 60s, Spaulding was forced to divest due to antitrust laws, and they were claimed to have a monopoly. And so Rawlings continued to produce the balls under the Spaulding name, although they were spun off as their own company. But in this 1976, when the contract ran up, MLB did sign officially with Rawlings. So now every official MLB ball has the commissioner's signature on it for that year. And also, actually, in 2018, the MLB bought a stake in the Rawlings company so that they can oversee the quality of the balls and maybe possibly keep price under control. It's all about the Benjamins. Yeah. And actually, guess how much it costs about each each ball, each major league baseball, the price?

Jerry 15:18

$500,000.

Brooke 15:20

Each baseball, right? No, $25.

Jerry 15:24

Oh, that is that's actually more expensive than I thought. I know, I know. Yeah.

108 Stitches And Handcrafting Today

Jerry 15:28

Well, of course, I gotta talk about that iconic stitch pattern. Now, in Pub Trivia, which we're big fans of, the number of stitches comes up periodically as a question. There are 108 double stitches. Now be careful how your trivia host asks this because technically it's 216 individual stitches, but it is classically 108 double stitches tied from an 88-inch red wax thread. Now, the number was adopted officially in 1934, has not changed. Why is it 108? Well, of course, less stitches would lead to greater spacing, less durability, but it's not exactly known why 108, as opposed to say 105 or 110. But, you know, hey, that's the mystery. Those 108 red stitches, by the way, in at least Major League Baseball and college baseballs are still stitched by hand. That's that is correct.

Brooke 16:23

Yeah, it probably has to do something with pie. Like uh cherry or coconut customer? The math, the math. Oh, PR. 3.156. Yeah, I don't know what the numbers are. Someone can repeat them out there. Um, YouTube has some great videos showing how the balls are made. It's not all the details because, of course, it's a secret. But the cores or the pills, they're made in Mississippi and shipped to Costa Rica, coated with an adhesive, then wrapped with three layers of different weights of wool yarn, and that yarn comes put together in Rhode Island, sent to Maine, and then sent down to Costa Rica. More glue goes on, and then leather from Pennsylvania and Tennessee gets wrapped around it and gets stitched together. Now, interesting, this is where stitching by humans has still beat out AI. Machines have tried, but nothing can match the tension and the curve needed when the stitch is going through the ball that a hand, an individual human's hand can do. Now, working in Tor Albo, hand stitch balls take about 10 to 15 minutes each. Now, I'd probably take three hours, but a person can do it 10 to 15 minutes. There are hundreds of workers producing around 50,000 balls every week. And Rawling sends out about 1.8 million balls a year to the MLB from that factory. But the other recreational balls that, if you were playing in your backyard, those are coming mostly from China. So those 216 stitches, well, they break the airflow, and that's what gives the balls movement, but we're not getting into that science today.

Jerry 18:07

So I'll give you a math question. If a stitch in time saves nine, how many of these save 108? Dun dun dun shh.

Dirty Baseballs And Ray Chapman

Jerry 18:16

Well, baseballs were not always white in color. In the 19th century, we kind of mentioned that. They were whatever color the leather coating was, typically brown or tan. In the early 20th century, white balls appeared for better visibility with that red stitching there for contrast. But with the change to white balls, the job of the pitcher became dirty the ball, muck it up, darken it, darken it with dirt, chewing tobacco, shoe polish, so that it would hard to see for batters. Night games didn't start until 1935, so certainly when games stretched out into the latter part of the day, balls became very difficult to see. This changed after the tragedy of August 16th, 1920, in the polo grounds, when Cleveland Indian shortstop Ray Chapman was at the plate and died when hit in the head by a ball thrown by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays. Chapman remains the only Major League Baseball player to die from an in-game injury. And his death was responsible for a practice we see every game for umpires today, which is replacing balls that might be dirty, scuff, even hit the dirt once. Granted, when the rule first happened, ball replacement did not happen as much as it did today. In fact, today, teams are required to have a minimum of 13 dozen, yep, 156 baseballs ready for each game. And on average, during a game, between 90 and 120 baseballs are used in a single game. Now, pitchers are not allowed to use substances on the baseball like Vaseline, pine tars, spider tack, or even saliva to change the spin or drop of a ball.

Brooke 19:55

The start of the 2021 season, the batting average was 237. That was the lowest since 1968. And the issue they found was pitchers using Spider-Tac. In June of that year, the MLB announced the umpires would check the pitcher's hand after every inning, plus

Sticky Substances Mud And Humidors

Brooke 20:15

they could also randomly check. And if there was any kind of substance found on their hands, in their gloves, under their hats, I remember someone checking like under their belt. It was a 10-game suspension.

Jerry 20:27

But there is a substance that still can be applied to baseball. A brand new baseball out of the factory is slick, hard to get a firm grip on. So Major League Baseball rules do require that each baseball be rubbed by a special rubbing mud for at least 30 seconds on game day. The mud that has been used since the 1930s is Lena Blackburn's baseball rubbing mud. Lena, who was a man, was the third base coach for the then Philadelphia Athletics and found this mud near Palmyre in New Jersey, still collected from the New Jersey side of the Delaware River. I remember my days as a youth playing in now Palmyra mud. I was on the other side of New Jersey. Now, every major league team since the 1950s gets about 10 pounds of mud at the start of each season.

Brooke 21:19

Did you know that the umpires are the ones to rub the mud on the ball?

Jerry 21:23

Right.

Brooke 21:23

Yeah. It looks like a dark brown modeling clay, and the company is still family-owned. There's one person, he goes out and he collects all the mud in the fall, stores it for the winter, and packages packages it and then ships it in the spring. Oddly, I was surprised there's not much money in the business. But the quote from the owner says From 1938, on all those record home runs and thousands of strikeouts, my family's mud has been on every ball.

Jerry 21:55

He's very proud.

Brooke 21:56

Yeah, he is. He's actually saying he's looking forward to his daughter taking over the business one.

Jerry 22:00

That's nice. And prior to game use, Major League Baseball mandates a ball be stored in a humidor for at least 14 days before game use. It cannot be taken out of the humidor more than two hours prior to the first pitch. Now, why? Well, balls stored in a humidor have a higher water content, so they're a bit heavier, meaning they won't travel as far as drier balls. Also, pitchers are able to get a better grip on the ball. Umidors were first used in 2002 in the high-altitude course field where the Rockies play. Then the Diamondbacks started them and started using one in 2018. Finally, in 2022, Major League Baseball mandated that all 30 teams use humidors with specific standards.

Brooke 22:44

I read that the humidors are in the tunnels under the stadiums, they're under lock and key. But I'm curious, I wonder if there are a few cigars in there.

The Lawsuit That Saved Foul Balls

Jerry 22:54

I mentioned that I submitted my ballot a little uh while back to the Shrine of Eternals, that fun alternate hall of fame associated with the baseball reliquary that we covered in episode 22, which celebrates groundbreaking players as well as some quirky choices involving the lore of the game. One of my picks was Reuben Berman. And now you may never have heard of Berman, but if you're ever fortunate enough to catch a foul ball at a major league game, you can thank Berman. Because of him, you can keep it. Now, going way back to 1921 in the polo grounds again, Berman, a 31-year-old stockbroker, was enjoying a game with the New York Giants facing the Reds. Most teams, including the Giants back then, had policies that fans could not keep foul balls. They had to give them back. Well, Berman caught one, the ushers descended on him and demanded it back. He refused to give it back and instead tossed it back into the crowd. Berman was taken actually by security to the team office, threatened with arrest, and finally kicked out of the polo grounds. Well, the Giants thought they were done with him, but Berman wound up suing the New York Giants for $20,000 for mental and bodily distress and humiliation. Now Berman won the case. He was only awarded $100, but the polo grounds and a lot of other stadiums and other clubs with the same policy, you know, really changed the rules after that. So thank you, Ruben. I feel like it's one of those Bud Light real men of genius ads. Thank you, Mr. Foul Ball Keeper. I love it. I love it. I've never caught a foul ball at a game. I'm not sure what my reaction would be if I was excited to catch one, and then some little kid appeared next to me hoping that I'll give him the ball. I mean, you're supposed to surrender it, but you know.

Brooke 24:36

Yeah, we we I remember one of our games, I don't remember where we were, Chicago maybe. We had a a foul ball drop right near our son, and it was it it was so intense, you so stressful. But I love all those kids that come to the games with their gloves on, you know, that's dreaming big.

Jerry 24:53

Yeah, and stealing them away from adults that catch the ball.

Brooke 24:58

So so, Jerry, tell me. You're you catch a home run, but it's for the other team. What do you do with the ball?

Jerry 25:05

Yeah, they want you to toss it back on the field.

Brooke 25:08

Yeah, what do you do? But it's the only one you'll probably ever, ever catch in your lifetime.

Jerry 25:12

Yeah, I mean, I'm getting older. I don't have any more chances. I know. Just saying. I d I'll I'll have to make that decision in the moment. Okay. Well, now you've heard more about the baseball than you ever wanted or needed to know.

Trivia Answer And Next Show Tease

Jerry 25:26

So let's get to that trivia answer. Remember, who's the only person in the pro football and professional baseball hall of fame? Uh, well, there have been a few high-profile players like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders who had pro careers in both sports, but none of them have had the stats and longevity to make the Hall of Fame. So there's a bit of a trick in this question, right? You got it. The answer is Cal Hubbard. Now, he was a dominant lineman and linebacker for the New York football giants and Green Bay Packers in the 1920s and 30s. But after football, he had his second career as a baseball umpire. And it's as an umpire that he's actually inducted in the baseball hall of fame. Tricky, tricky.

Brooke 26:07

Well, fun time today. I have to say, I'm amazed I did not once say that's what she said with the topic of this episode.

Jerry 26:15

Oh, yeah. That's that's we kept it clear the whole time. Well, it was fun an episode. Uh join us Thursday for our next episode about that great Hall of Fame Oriol's third baseman, Brooks Robinson. Uh, thanks always to Brooke, my producer. You're welcome. Channel, especially to Connor at the old pig and whistle bar, who assured me he'd be listening. And we're always happy you're listening and hope you'll keep listening. Don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube where hey you can watch us. Or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Heading back to the locker room, this is Jerry Dines and Fingos and Fastbooks.