Clipping:The composition of balls; illegal balls; skillful batting

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Date Saturday, July 17, 1869
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Now, a cricket ball is composed of cork chips, tightly wound round with yarn, and covered with thick, hard, stamped leather. This, combined with the elasticity of the cricket bat, suffices to send a hard-hit cricket ball a very long distance. A cricket ball has been hit over 200 yards distance. Our base balls, however, are now made–legally–of rubber, wound round with yarn, and covered with thin leather. This composition admits of a ball as heavy and almost as hard as a cricket ball; but it is of treble its elasticity. Some base ball are made–illegally–with a small ball of cork in the centre, covered with nearly three ounces of hard rubber, and this with about two ounces of yarn and leather. The result is a ball which will rebound on hard ground from twenty to thirty feet, and one which a fielder finds it very difficult to hold, and our ordinary batsman very easy to send over the heads of the outfielders for home runs. For several years past “heavy batting nines” have made it a “point” in making up their games to secure the privilege of selecting the ball, and having had balls specially made for them of extra elasticity, they have of course carried off the palm over their better fielding but less heavy batting opponents. The experience of the last few years, and especially of that of this season, has plainly pointed out to me the necessity of the Association’s taking some action at the next convention to secure for match playing a perfectly made base ball, which shall give skillful fielding an equal chance at least to offset the batting. At present heavy hard hitters, who go in at the bat to hit a ball as far as they can without the least idea of where it is going to, and of course, hitting without judgment, have a great advantage over really skillful batsmen who go in to out-wit active and expert fielders, rather than to obtain runs by similar muscular display of those country-village batsmen.

Source National Chronicle
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Submitted by Richard Hershberger
Origin Initial Hershberger Clippings

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