1840s.21

Early Ball Contents: Nuts, Bullets, Rocks, Fish-eyes

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags	Equipment, The BallEquipment, The Ball
Location
City/State/Country:	[[{{{Country}}}]]
Modern Address
Game
Immediacy of Report
Age of Players
Holiday
Notables
Text	Prior to 1845, baseballs are constructed of cores consisting of nuts, bullets, rocks or shoe rubber gum and even sturgeon eyes wrapped with yarn and covered in leather or sheepskin in the lemon-peel style or the belt/gusset ball style. Both cover styles were identical to those used in feathery golf balls from the 1700s. Typically homemade, the sizes ranged anywhere from 5.1 to 9.8 inches in circumference and could weigh anywhere from 1 oz. to 7 oz. with the typical baseball weighing 3 oz. Because outs were made by "soaking" a runner in games preceding the New York game, the early baseballs were evidently typically lighter. Submitted by Rob Loeffler, 3/1/07. See "The Evolution of the Baseball Up to 1872," March 2007. See also #1835c.14, #1840c.17.
Sources
Warning
Comment	Edit with form to add a comment
Query	Edit with form to add a query
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
External Number
Submitted by
Submission Note
Has Supplemental Text

Comments