Learn about how many baseballs are used in an MLB game and what happens to all the used balls. An average of 84 to 120 baseballs are used in an MLB game. The higher end of balls used in a game will total around 120, which will be considered a high amount.

Throughout nine innings, 120 balls may seem excessive. However, it all starts to add up with warm-ups between innings, foul balls, balls thrown in the dirt, and home runs. A pitcher can request a new ball at any time, especially if it has signs of wear and tear and scuffing, but they are also replaced when they are hit out of play or when the ball is discolored.

Still, it doesn’t mean it is the end of the line for each ball when the ball is replaced.

An average of 84 to 120 baseballs are used in an MLB game, with the higher end totaling around 120. The balls can be requested by a pitcher or replaced when they are hit out of play or discolored. Discarded balls cannot be reused and instead are authenticated and sold as memorabilia in MLB shops. Baseballs may need to be replaced every three to seven pitches depending on what happened during a play, the quality of the ball, etc. Umpires throw out baseballs due to Rule 3:01, which states no player shall intentionally damage the ball; this rule was put into place after Ray Chapman was fatally struck by Carl Mays’ pitch in 1920 because it is believed he would have had more time if Mays pitched a clean ball rather than one that had been scuffed up beforehand. Used baseballs collected throughout games will either go for sale at auction or be saved for Hall Of Fame display purposes, while some may also get sent down for batting practice use from minor leagues teams

How much money does MLB spend on baseballs?

How many baseballs are used in one MLB game and how much do they cost? In the fifth inning on August 16, 1920, the Cleveland Indians’ Ray Chapman came to bat at the Polo Grounds. Carl Mays, recently acquired from the Boston Red Sox along with another young pitcher known as Babe Ruth, was on the mound for the Yankees, looking for his 100th win.

1. Nown to brush hitters back if they crowded the plate, Mays let loose with his submarine delivery.
2. Chapman never even saw the ball.
3. It struck him on the head, fracturing his skull, an injury which claimed his life twelve hours later.
4. Raymond Johnson Chapman’s death had several consequences for baseball, from the immediate banning of the spitball, to the eventual adoption of batting helmets, all designed to alleviate the symptom of being hit by a pitch, both in making the pitch more controllable as well as making the impact less life-threatening.

Baseballs looked different before Raymond Chapman, Cleveland Indians, was hit by a pitch in the temple by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays on August 17, 1920. He died 12 hours later. He couldn’t see the tobacco juice stained Baseball. Umpires began keeping white baseballs in the game.

• Ron Butler (@racbutler) Another, more direct, consequence was a change that would forever alter the basic premise of the game, separating it permanently from its roots in England.
• This was the immediate adoption of a rule requiring the umpire to replace a ball once it became dirty.
• In a single fell swoop, baseball shifted from a strategic game where runs were eked out against a dominant pitcher, to a power-hitter’s paradise,

It is no coincidence that 1920 saw the permanent shift from pitcher to outfield for the young Ruth. The emergence of Ruth for the Yankees, and the excitement that accompanied his blasts with the bat, are seen as the defining event that ended the “dead ball era” of baseball.

1. But in reality, Ruth was a beneficiary of the ending of that era, not the catalyst.
2. The true reason that home runs became such a staple part of the game is that the game was fundamentally altered by the new rule change,
3. With a clean ball in play at all times, players no longer had to contend with a ball that “traveled through the air erratically, tended to soften in the later innings, and as it came over the plate, was very hard to see.” Where early baseball focused on what we today would call “small ball tactics”, and can readily be understood by simply watching a game of cricket, the constant use of a fresh baseball meant that the upper hand in the contest after 1920 was the one that held the stick, not the ball.

With a scuffed or dirty ball no longer useable in a game, the teams began to permit foul balls and home runs to be simply kept by fans as a souvenir, Previously, the crowd were not allowed to keep a ball and it had to be thrown back into the pitcher so that it could continue to be used in the game.

As this gradually became not only understood, but expected, Major League Baseball has had to devote ever-increasing sums to invest in game balls. Whereas the baseball game in which Chapman was killed would have used perhaps three or four balls at most, a modern game will churn through between seven and ten dozen baseballs,

That is 120 balls used per game. There are 2430 games in a season. That is 291,600 balls per year. Then we have the post season to contend with. With the playoffs, pennants, and World Series on the line, the umpires are, if anything, even more likely to swap out balls, whether they are dirty or not.

The postseason can easily double the use of balls, and when you factor in extra-inning games and practice balls to the equation, it is not an unreasonable supposition to put the number of baseballs used by MLB to be in the region of 900,000, This puts the annual MLB budget for baseballs alone in the $10 million range.

Fans who go to the game and are lucky enough to catch a foul ball or home run will get to go home with a souvenir of their day. But often balls will be removed for all sorts of reasons. Umpires may have removed balls that became discolored or misshapen, but after more than a century since the rule was put into place, balls are removed once they are scuffed in any way, even by a foul tip or being thrown into the dirt.

• Additionally, a pitcher can call for a new ball because they don’t like something about the feel.
• Perhaps it is too slick, or the seams don’t stand up enough, or any number of reasons.
• The request is almost never denied and the ball is usually, although not always, discarded by the umpire,
• Once a ball has gone out of play, it cannot be put back into play again, making the time-honored gesture of Cubs fans returning opposition home runs at Wrigley a purely symbolic move,

The ball itself will likely be used to sign autographs or simply put into a pile for batting practice, but it will not be used again in the game. For the last four decades, the sole supplier of baseballs to the Major Leagues has been Rawlings, and with a customer base of a single client who consumes over 80% of your production line annually, they look to have a golden business model.

How many baseballs does the MLB use per game?

How many baseballs are used in an MLB game? We tracked a Guardians-Tigers game to find out There are rules to this. That’s important to understand. Every half-inning begins with a new baseball. Every time a pitch touches the dirt, it’s typically tossed.

1. If a batter hits it, likely gone, too.
2. Some pitchers are pickier than others.
3. They might throw out a ball before even using it at all.
4. Watching the and take batting practice before last Friday’s game at Progressive Field gave me an idea: Count every ball that is used in the game.
5. It’s more difficult than you think.

Pitchers might toss one in the middle of warmups. Guardians starter tossed out three before throwing the game’s first pitch. Civale and Tigers starter were so picky with baseballs that even Guardians catcher Austin Hedges noticed. “Rawlings is making some bank tonight,” Hedges told Tigers catcher Tucker Barnhart during one at-bat.

Baseball estimates between eight and 10 dozen baseballs are used in every major-league game. So how do you go through 96-120 baseballs every single night? Here’s how A ball boy drops off the first ball and rosin bag after the national anthem and before the Guardians take the field. It doesn’t even survive Civale’s warmup tosses and Hedges tosses it for a new ball (1).

Civale completes his warmup throws and tosses out that one, too (2). We’re at three balls and no strikes before leadoff batter Robbie Grossman even steps into the box. “Civ is (pickier) than most,” Hedges concedes. Civale gets two quick outs on three pitches.

1. This might be the one.
2. Grounds to second.
3. Civale gets the ball back and throws it into the dugout (3).
4. They get dented,” Civale explains.
5. It just has a different feel.
6. I don’t know how it reacts, but it feels different to me.” fouls one off (4).
7. A ball boy retrieves it and gives it to a fan.
8. Another ball boy runs out another set of balls to home plate umpire Shane Livensparger as Civale palms a new one.

He throws one pitch with it and strikes out Miguel Cabrera looking. Civale is pumped. It’s the first time in his career he struck out Cabrera, one of the players he grew up admiring. Hedges throws it to at third who promptly flips it underhand high in the air and into the stands (5).

• New half-inning, new ball.
• Singles on the first pitch he sees to start the bottom of the first, so you know where this is going — into the camera bay (6).
• Fights off three pitches (7, 8, 9) before bouncing into a double play.
• Skubal checks it after the Tigers throw it around and, yep, no good (10).
• He shakes the ball in his hand to get Livensparger’s attention for another one.

Ramirez digs in and fouls it into the seats (11). Ramirez hits a rope to center that fools, who initially broke in. Ramirez scampers into third and Barnhart doesn’t even wait for Skubal to throw out the old one (12) before flipping him a new one. hits a sharp grounder to short to end the inning and the Tigers take the ball with them into the dugout (13).

Thirteen baseballs just to get through the first inning. Civale throws three pitches and grounds out. Livensparger reaches into his bag and tosses out a new ball (14) before the Guardians finish throwing the old one around the infield. Civale’s breaking ball badly fools, It’s an 0-2 count. The ball is working, right? Wrong.

Hedges flips it to the dugout (15). “If it hits the dirt, I’m throwing it out,” Hedges says. “Every time.” Candelario fouls off two pitches (16, 17) and the ball boy runs out three new ones. He needs them fast. There go two more foul balls (18, 19). fouls one in the dirt (20) before doubling down the left-field line.

By the time the ball returns to the infield, Ramirez doesn’t even ask. He rolls it out of play (21). More importantly, the Tigers have runners at second and third now with one out. hits a line drive to Ramirez, who steps on third to double off Candelario. He takes the ball with him into the dugout (22).

fouls off two rather quickly (23, 24). When Reyes strikes out looking, Livensparger reaches into his bag, but Skubal checks the ball and elects to keep it. Mercado lines out for the second out and, hang on a minute, Skubal keeps it! It’s the first time in this game a batter made contact and the ball wasn’t immediately discarded.

But when fouls it to the screen, a ball boy retrieves it and drops it into the dugout suites (25). Chang strikes out looking to end the inning (26). Barnhart grounds out to start the third. Civale calls for a new ball (27). Derek Hill lines a single to left. Civale retrieves it and throws it out of play (28).

The ball boy checks but doesn’t drop this one in the dugout suites. Instead, he returns it to the bag by his feet. So it’s not dead yet? How do we score this? Will Civale be able to tell if he gets it back? Have I wasted the last 45 minutes doing this? While I try to figure this out, Grossman hits one foul (29) and the ball boy retrieves it and again it goes back into the bag.

Are they suddenly running low? We were discarding balls like expired eggs a minute ago. Now they’re hoarding them? “That’s a garbage bag,” Hedges said. “The ball is trashed. It won’t come back in the game.” What a relief. Onward. Hill gets a good jump and steals second. Civale surprisingly elects to keep the ball, but Grossman fouls off the next pitch anyway (30) before flying out on the next pitch.

Civale calls time, checks the ball and tosses it out (31). The ball boy scoops it up and stares at it. He keeps it in his hand for a moment, flips it to the other ball boy and they make the executive decision to put it in the “garbage bag” rather than flip it into the stands.

1. Castro grounds out to end the inning (32).
2. Skubal tosses a few warmup pitches and discards that one, too (33).
3. Fouls one off (34) before singling.
4. Civale would discard it immediately if he was on the mound, but Skubal wants to give it one more chance.
5. He throws three more pitches before Hedges fouls one in the dirt (35).

Hedges flies out on the next pitch and Skubal elects to keep it. The ball lives long enough to tag out Clement at second trying to steal. That’s two outs with one ball, which at this rate might be some sort of record (not counting double plays). Straw grounds out to end the inning (36).

All three outs with one ball. That’s a record. Civale burns through seven balls in the top of the fourth: two on Cabrera (37, 38), two on Baez (39, 40) and three on Candelario (41, 42, 43). Skubal does him one better and needs six balls to get through the bottom of the fourth: three to Rosario (44, 45, 46), one on Ramirez (47) and two to Owen Miller (48, 49).

When Civale bounces a pitch to Torkelson to start the fifth, even the rookie knows the drill at this point. Torkelson flips the ball out of play (50) before fouling off three more (51, 52, 53) before grounding out (54). Schoop flies out (55) and Barnhart burns through four balls in his at-bat (56, 57, 58, 59), which might have been when Hedges cracked the Rawlings joke.

Civale, enjoying his best outing after a brutal six weeks to start the season, applauds the defense by clapping with his glove as the ball boy comes bearing gifts for Livensparger: two more baseballs and a cold drink. This is hard work. Livensparger has thrown almost as many pitches as Civale. Reyes lines a single to left field to open the fifth.

Skubal keeps the ball, then checks it again and changes his mind (60). Oscar Mercado lines two foul balls off the screen (61, 62) and Livensparger is calling for the ball boy again. Four foul balls from Chang (63, 64, 65, 66) precede Livensparger going all Civale and throwing a ball out just to throw one out (67).

• Skubal finally strikes out Chang before taking a line drive off his shin.
• Candelario throws out Chang to end the inning, but that ball isn’t coming back (68).
• Neither is Skubal, who leaves with a contusion on his left leg.
• Lost in all this ball counting was the fact this was a beautifully pitched scoreless game for the first five innings.

Civale throws two pitches to Hill to start the sixth and wants a new ball (69). He checks and then discards it (70). “There’s a certain seam orientation that I prefer,” Civale said. “And 95 percent of the balls are the way that I like them. It just depends on how they’re stamped.

How much does MLB pay for each baseball?

Curious about how much does a Major League Baseball cost? If you’re a hardcore fan or an avid collector, you’re in for an interesting ride through the world of expenses in America’s favorite sport. Throughout the course of a season, MLB teams go through tens of thousands of baseballs.

Exploring the price of an MLB baseball can help fans better understand the impact of expenses on ticket prices and the overall financial strategy of MLB organizations. Major League Baseball (MLB) uses a specific type of baseball that is manufactured by Rawlings, These baseballs are designed to meet the league’s specifications and play at the highest professional level.

The average cost of an MLB baseball is around $7 per ball. However, it’s important to note that prices can vary depending on factors such as the source and discounts for bulk purchases. During a typical MLB game, teams use nine dozen baseballs, resulting in a total cost of approximately $756 for a single game.

Let’s do the math. There are 30 teams playing 162 regular-season games in a season. This means that MLB teams use approximately 262,440 baseballs during the regular season. In summary, MLB baseball cost varies depending on the quality, specifications, purchase volume, and condition, among other factors.

While the exact cost can fluctuate, it is estimated that the league spends a significant amount on baseballs (est $10m) each season to ensure that its games are played with the highest standard of equipment. Rawlings is the official manufacturer of Major League Baseballs and has been producing them since 1977.

The company’s factory, located in Costa Rica, is responsible for producing all MLB baseballs, as well as balls for other professional leagues worldwide. Rawlings has a great reputation for quality and craftsmanship, ensuring that each baseball meets the stringent specifications set by Major League Baseball.

The production process begins with raw materials such as cowhide, rubber, and cork. Experts carefully select top-quality cowhides, inspect them, and then skillfully cut them into small, four-piece panels. Skilled artisans then skive these panels, thinning the edges to create a smooth and round finished ball.

• Layers of rubber and cork are then added, serving as the baseball’s core.
• These materials provide a combination of weight and resilience, making them ideal for both pitching and hitting.
• Skilled workers hand-sew the cowhide panels using 108 stitches of waxed red thread once they have formed the core.
• This attention to quality and detail has helped Rawlings remain the trusted supplier of official MLB baseballs for decades.

Major League Baseball has strict specifications to ensure uniformity and consistency in the game. These are some of the key specifications for an official MLB baseball: It costs around $7 to produce each MLB baseball. Retail and online stores sell the baseballs at prices ranging from $10 to $25, with an average retail price of around $15.

1. Game-used MLB-authenticated baseballs can go for $100 or more, making them highly sought-after collectibles,
2. Before every MLB game, teams take batting practice to warm up and get additional reps in.
3. Baseballs used in BP differ from those used during a live game as they are carded, meaning they have been previously used in a game and deemed unsuitable for official play.

Teams use dozens of these carded baseballs during batting practice, Home runs and fouls are other factors that contribute to the high number of baseballs used in a game. Foul balls may cause scuffs and damage to the ball or leave the playing field altogether.

Same thing with home run balls. Any ball that leaves the park typically isn’t returned (unless you are at Wrigley and are pressured to throw it back). As a result, these factors also contribute to the increased cost of baseballs for MLB games. Catching a baseball during an MLB game is a cherished experience for many fans.

Each game utilizes approximately 108 baseballs, providing fans with numerous opportunities to catch a foul ball, home run ball, or even a ball thrown by a player into the stands. The value of the caught baseball far exceeds its cost, as it creates a lasting memory for the fan who catches it.

Major League Baseball (MLB) games consume an average of 108 baseballs per game, resulting in a substantial number of used baseballs that require management. These baseballs often find new life through recycling and repurposing initiatives. One way they can be recycled is by transforming them into valuable memorabilia.

Once a baseball is taken out of play, it goes through an authentication process. An authenticator will attach a tamper-proof MLB hologram to each ball and register its serial number into a software program. This step ensures that the used baseball’s history is traceable, adding credibility and value to any memorabilia made from it.

• An effective way that MLB teams repurpose used baseballs is by turning them into autographed items and pieces of memorabilia.
• Additionally, MLB teams often offer game-used baseballs for sale to fans.
• For instance, MLB has a wide variety of game-used baseballs available for purchase, with prices varying based on the ball’s significance and the popularity of the players involved.

In summary, MLB manages used baseballs with care, recycling and repurposing them into merchandise, autographs, and memorabilia. This process not only creates unique items for fans to enjoy but also contributes to a more sustainable approach to managing used equipment within the professional sports industry.

1. In summary, the cost of an official Major League Baseball (MLB) can vary depending on factors such as the source of purchase and whether the ball is new or used.
2. The insane number of baseballs MLB teams go through each season is no joke.
3. Those expenses pile up real quick for the league and the teams.
4. So, the next time you catch a Major League Baseball game, take a moment to appreciate the hidden costs behind each pitch and hit.

It’s a reminder that every play on the field carries a financial impact, further deepening our appreciation for this great game.

How many baseballs are rubbed up for a game?

A minimum of 13 dozen are readied for each MLB game. The new process: Mud must be applied to each ball on the day it will be used for a minimum of 30 seconds, with the same mud-to-water ratio, to ensure it’s worked thoroughly into the hand-stitched leather.

Does MLB reuse baseballs?

Learn about how many baseballs are used in an MLB game and what happens to all the used balls. An average of 84 to 120 baseballs are used in an MLB game. The higher end of balls used in a game will total around 120, which will be considered a high amount.

Throughout nine innings, 120 balls may seem excessive. However, it all starts to add up with warm-ups between innings, foul balls, balls thrown in the dirt, and home runs. A pitcher can request a new ball at any time, especially if it has signs of wear and tear and scuffing, but they are also replaced when they are hit out of play or when the ball is discolored.

Still, it doesn’t mean it is the end of the line for each ball when the ball is replaced.

An average of 84 to 120 baseballs are used in an MLB game, with the higher end totaling around 120. The balls can be requested by a pitcher or replaced when they are hit out of play or discolored. Discarded balls cannot be reused and instead are authenticated and sold as memorabilia in MLB shops. Baseballs may need to be replaced every three to seven pitches depending on what happened during a play, the quality of the ball, etc. Umpires throw out baseballs due to Rule 3:01, which states no player shall intentionally damage the ball; this rule was put into place after Ray Chapman was fatally struck by Carl Mays’ pitch in 1920 because it is believed he would have had more time if Mays pitched a clean ball rather than one that had been scuffed up beforehand. Used baseballs collected throughout games will either go for sale at auction or be saved for Hall Of Fame display purposes, while some may also get sent down for batting practice use from minor leagues teams

Do they reuse baseballs that hit the dirt?

Also keep in mind that once a baseball is removed from the game it never returns. These days these days any baseball that touches a dirt surface is pretty much immediately thrown out of play. Some of those balls are then used for batting practice and some are shipped to minor league teams.

How heavy is an MLB baseball?

Overview – Halves of two baseballs; traditional cork-centered (left) and rubber-centered Cushioned wood cores were patented in the late 19th century by sports equipment manufacturer Spalding, the company founded by former baseball star A.G. Spalding, In recent years, various synthetic materials have been used to create baseballs; however, they are generally considered lower quality, stitched with two red thick thread, and are not used in the major leagues,

1. Using different types of materials affects the performance of the baseball.
2. Generally a tighter-wound baseball will leave the bat faster, and fly farther.
3. Since the baseballs used today are wound tighter than in previous years, notably the dead-ball era that prevailed through 1920, people often say the ball is ” juiced “,

The height of the seams also affects how well a pitcher can pitch. Baseballs used in MLB and the top minor leagues (AAA) are made to the same specifications, but labelled separately. Balls used in the lower minor leagues (up to AA) use slightly different specifications intended to make those balls somewhat more durable, although MLB pitchers on rehab assignments in the minors are usually supplied with major league-grade balls.

1. Generally, in Little League through college leagues, the seams are markedly higher than balls used in professional leagues.
2. Baseballs cost three dollars each in 1900, a unit price which would be equal to $106 today.
3. Due to their high relative cost, club owners in the early 20th century were reluctant to spend much money on new balls if not necessary.

It was not unusual for a single baseball to last an entire game, nor for a baseball to be reused for the next game especially if it was still in relatively good condition as would likely be the case for a ball introduced late in the game. Balls hit into the stands were retrieved by team employees in order to be put back in play, as is still done today in some other sports.

1. Over the course of a game, a typical ball would become discolored due to dirt, and often tobacco juice and other materials applied by players; damage would also occur, causing slight rips and seam bursts.
2. This would lower the offense during the games giving pitchers an advantage.
3. However, after the 1920 death of batter Ray Chapman after being hit in the head by a pitch, perhaps due to his difficulty in seeing the ball during twilight, an effort was made to replace dirty or worn baseballs.

However, some rules intended solely to reduce the frequency (and associated expense) with which balls need to be replaced during a game remain in force – the Pine Tar Incident in the 1980s was one famous occurrence directly resulting from the enforcement of such a rule.

Today, MLB teams are required to have a minimum of 156 baseballs ready for use in each game. When combined with baseballs needed for practice, etc. each MLB team uses tens of thousands of balls every season. However, modern professional-grade baseballs purchased in bulk as is the case with professional teams only cost about seven dollars each as of 2023 and thus make up a negligible portion of a modern MLB team’s operating budget.

Recreational-grade baseballs can be purchased by the public for an even lower unit price. Once discarded by the umpire, game-used baseballs not hit into the stands are collected by batboys, Many baseballs involved in historical plays are displayed at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York,

1. Other baseballs associated with noteworthy in-game events are often authenticated and sold as memorabilia,
2. Most such sales today are conducted on MLB’s official website.
3. The total proceeds from such sales represent a significant portion of the total purchase cost of baseballs since even balls used for relatively minor accomplishments can each fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars.

In 1909, sports magnate and former player Alfred J. Reach patented the ivory centered “ivory nut” in Panama and suggested it might be even better in a baseball than cork. However, Philadelphia Athletics president Benjamin F. Shibe, who had invented and patented the cork centered ball, commented, “I look for the leagues to adopt an ‘ivory nut’ baseball just as soon as they adopt a ferro-concrete bat and a base studded with steel spikes,” Both leagues adopted Shibe’s cork-centered ball in 1910.

1. The official major league ball is made by Rawlings, which produces the stitched balls in Costa Rica,
2. Attempts to automate the manufacturing process were never entirely successful, leading to the continued use of hand-made balls.
3. The raw materials are imported from the United States, assembled into baseballs and shipped back.

Throughout the 20th Century, Major League Baseball used two technically identical but differently marked balls. The American League had “Official American League” and the American League’s president’s signature in blue ink, while National League baseballs had “Official National League” and the National League president’s signature in black ink.

• Bob Feller stated that when he was a rookie in the 1930s, National League baseball laces were black, intertwined with red; American League baseball laces were blue and red.
• In 2000, Major League Baseball reorganized its structure to eliminate the position of league presidents, and switched to one ball specification for both leagues.

Under the current rules, a major league baseball weighs between 5 and 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 ounces (142 and 149 g), and is 9 to 9 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (229–235 mm) in circumference ( 2 + 7 ⁄ 8 –3 in or 73–76 mm in diameter). There are 108 double stitches on a baseball, or 216 individual stitches.

While the decision whether to discard a baseball is formally at the discretion of the home plate umpire, today baseballs are expected to be immediately replaced after even minor scratches, discoloration and undesirable texture that can occur during the game. Balls used for pre-game warm-ups are often given to fans.

Because baseballs are almost always replaced after each half-inning it is increasingly customary for players to give balls used to end half-innings to fans in the front rows, either by handing the ball to a fan (especially a child) in the front row or by gently tossing it into the stands, especially if the player holding it is a home team player close to the stands as for example is often the case for an outfielder catching a fly ball.

MLB has long recognized any ball that comes into the possession of a spectator by any lawful means after entering the stands as immediately becoming the property of that spectator, although balls hit out of the park for momentous occasions (record setting, or for personal reasons) are often requested to be returned by the fan who catches or otherwise retrieves it, or donated freely by the fan.

Usually, the player will give the fan an autographed bat and/or other autographed items in exchange for the special ball. Without proper preparation, an official professional-grade baseball is very dangerous to throw because it is so slick and hard. By rule, balls used in the professional game must be rubbed with a mud known as “rubbing mud”, which is typically applied either by the umpires or someone working under their supervision before each game, and is intended to help the pitcher’s grip.

• Baseball or Hard baseball – Ordinary baseball which is used in Major League Baseball, in Japan is used in high school baseball and above for (hardball) baseball, referred to as hardball or baseball
• Rubber baseball aka Nanshiki – Used for rubberball baseball usually played prior to high school in Japan; sometimes referred to as Japanese rubber baseball
• Soft (compression) baseball – Used for batting practice and fielding training or softball baseball which can be safely played indoors, usually made from polyurethane (PU) material

• Ordinary baseball
• Rubber baseball
• Soft (compression) baseball

Where are MLB balls made?

Official Major League baseballs are made by Rawlings Sporting Goods in Costa Rica and have been since 1987. The labor is affordable, and the people of Costa Rica are said to take pride in making the official baseballs for MLB. It takes ten days to make one, to the tune of almost two million balls a year.

Who makes the baseballs for the MLB?

Description. For over 40 years Rawlings has been the exclusive supplier of baseballs to the Major Leagues. Every Rawlings ROMLB baseball is carefully crafted with the finest materials available and assembled, weighed, measured, tested and inspected for the highest possible level of quality and consistency.

How much does a major league umpire make?

Umpire baseball. A great summer job and a career path for some. Umpiring baseball can be a great summer job for several reasons. It offers a unique opportunity to be a part of the game of baseball, which is one of the most beloved sports in America, and provides a chance to earn a steady income while enjoying the summer months. Here are some of the reasons why umpiring can be a great summer job:

Enjoyment of the sport: For those who love the game of baseball, umpiring provides a unique opportunity to be a part of the action. Umpires get to see the game from a different perspective and are right in the thick of things, making critical calls that can impact the outcome of the game. Flexibility: Umpiring typically takes place in the evenings and weekends, making it a great summer job for those who have other obligations during the day. It allows for a flexible schedule and allows umpires to take advantage of the other opportunities that the summer months offer. Good pay: Umpiring can be a well-paying job, particularly for those who work in the higher levels of the sport. In the summer, we (Gameday) pays anywhere from $55-$75 per game depending on the age level. In the minor leagues, umpires can earn anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 per month, while in the Major Leagues, umpires can earn upwards of $300,000 per year. Opportunities for advancement: For those who are interested in pursuing a career in umpiring, the summer months can provide an opportunity to gain valuable experience and move up the ladder. Umpires can start at the amateur or collegiate level and work their way up to the professional ranks.

We are hiring umpires at Gameday to work games from the age of 10 all the way up to High School. Interested applicants can find out more and apply here: To make it to the Big Leagues, baseball umpiring is a unique and demanding career that requires a combination of physical and mental toughness, as well as a deep understanding of the game.

1. A journey to becoming a Major League Baseball (MLB) umpire is a long and challenging road that starts in the minor leagues and can take years of hard work, dedication, and perseverance.
2. The life of a minor league umpire is grueling, with long hours and constant travel.
3. Many umpires work in the minor leagues for several years, honing their skills and building a reputation before earning a promotion to the MLB.

During the minor league season, umpires typically work six days a week, with games being played in the evening. They also travel between cities, often driving long distances to reach their next destination. In terms of compensation, minor league umpires typically earn a modest salary, ranging from $1,900 to $2,400 per month during their first season.

1. As they gain experience and move up the ranks, their pay increases, with experienced umpires in Triple-A (the highest level of the minor leagues) earning an average of $3,500 to $4,500 per month.
2. Once an umpire has proven themselves in the minor leagues, they may be considered for a promotion to the MLB.

However, getting a call to the big leagues is a competitive process and requires a combination of skill, experience, and a good reputation. In the MLB, umpires work a grueling schedule, with games being played nearly every day for six months out of the year.

In addition to traveling between cities, MLB umpires are expected to work long hours, often arriving at the stadium several hours before the game and leaving well after it has ended. Despite the demanding schedule, the compensation for MLB umpires is significantly higher than in the minor leagues. The average salary for an MLB umpire is $300,000 per year, with experienced umpires earning even more.

In addition to their base salary, MLB umpires also receive benefits such as health insurance, pension plans, and per diem expenses for travel. There are umpire schools that people can attend to learn the skills and techniques needed to become a professional baseball umpire.

Research: Research different umpire schools and compare their programs, facilities, and instructors. Look for schools with a good reputation and a proven track record of producing successful umpires. Application: Submit an application to the umpire school of your choice, which may include an essay, resume, and reference letters. Some schools also require an in-person interview or evaluation. Training: Participate in the umpire school’s training program, which may include classroom instruction, on-field drills, and live game situations. The training program will cover a wide range of topics, including rules and regulations, mechanics, and professional conduct. Evaluation: Throughout the training program, you will be evaluated by instructors and veteran umpires. The evaluation process will assess your skills, knowledge, and overall performance as an umpire. Certification: Upon successful completion of the umpire school program, you will receive a certificate of completion and be eligible to work as a professional umpire in the minor leagues.

The odds are not stacked in your favor to become a MLB umpire. There are only 70 Major League Baseball (MLB) umpires. These umpires are divided into six crew chiefs and 62 other umpires who work together to cover all 2,430 regular season MLB games each year, as well as any playoff games.

The number of umpires in MLB is determined by the Commissioner’s Office and can change from year to year based on factors such as retirements, resignations, and performance evaluations. If you’re looking for some extra money on the side, umpiring youth and high school games is a great summertime job.

: Umpire baseball. A great summer job and a career path for some.

Do MLB players buy their bats?

Who provides MLB bats? – While MLB players sometimes buy their own bats, they often have endorsement deals with brands, reports Baseball Boom, Teams also provide a certain number of bats for each athlete; they’ll buy a players’ preferred bats. Sometimes, players will simply purchase a bat they’d like to try out.

How does MLB get their money?

Baseball players get paid so much because they have some of the most well-paid media rights agreements out of any sport. These contracts enable baseball teams to make much money from merchandise sales, TV contracts, and ticket sales for baseball games.

1. The revenue earned from these income streams enables teams to pay players well.
2. Baseball players, on average, earn more money than most other professional athletes, except basketball players in the NBA.
3. Many baseball players can also extend their careers well after they retire as an athlete by becoming a manager or specific kind of coach.

Some also choose to go into sports commentary and earn high-paying salaries. Baseball players are also paid a lot of money because their contracts often are for many years. Players signing more long-term contracts can often receive more money than those baseball players who sign shorter deals.

What do they do to baseballs before games?

The existence of Bigfoot, the formula for Coca-Cola and the whereabouts of D.B. Cooper are longstanding mysteries in the American consciousness, but what about the National Pastime? Turns out, baseball has its own unsolvable puzzle: The source location of baseball’s “magic mud.” Today, Rule 4.01(c), under “Game Preliminaries – Umpire Duties” in the Official Major League Baseball Rules, reads, in part: “The umpire shall inspect the baseballs and ensure they are regulation baseballs and that they are properly rubbed so that the gloss is removed.” But what specifically is being “properly rubbed” on all MLB baseballs? Simply put, it’s dirt and water – and cannot be produced without the help of Mother Nature.

Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud has been used in the majors dating back to the 1930s to improve the grip and dull the shine of new baseballs. Before every game, dozens of baseballs are rubbed with this one-of-a-kind specialty product, derived from a secret source, by an umpire or other club personnel.

No other foreign substance can be applied to new baseballs before they are used. Since Cleveland’s Ray Chapman died in 1920 as the result of being hit in the head with a pitched ball, the game had made efforts to improve the welfare of its players as it relates to the baseball.

Pitchers can’t get a good grip on new, shiny baseballs – and hitters are sometimes blinded when the sun or indoor lighting hits the too-white surface. In July 1929, National League President John Heydler issued an edict to his umpires to treat new baseballs with dirt as a means of aiding the pitchers, claiming that slightly soiling the orb will make it easier for pitchers to handle and at the same time lessen the luster and brightness of the cover.

“We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t manufacture a baseball that doesn’t have a slick hide and a white gloss to it,” said Durwood Merrill, an American League umpire from 1977 to 1999. “So in the old days, they’d just rub ‘em with dirt from around home plate, with maybe a spit or two of tobacco juice.” Here’s the dirt on baseball rubbing mud: One can trace its history and its secret location back to the 1938 season, when American League umpire Harry Geisel complained during a game about the job of taking the slickness off new baseballs.

In those days, ballpark dirt and water were the main raw ingredients, as well as the occasional tobacco juice and shoe polish, used on new baseballs. But the ballpark-made mud was often too coarse, thus putting marks on the cover of the baseball, which would allow pitchers to get their fingernails in those marks and make the ball travel in an unnatural path.

Lena Blackburne, an eight-year veteran of the big leagues who was at the time a third base coach with the Philadelphia Athletics, overheard Geisel’s griping and his thoughts raced back to his youth. As a child, Blackburne had discovered a special mud while wading in Pennsauken Creek, a branch of the Delaware River, near his southern New Jersey home.

1. I noticed in those days that the outgoing tides purified the mud at the bottom of the creek, leaving it inky black and sticky,” Blackburne remembered.
2. Two streams come together where I get my mud.
3. That means it is filtered twice and is very fine.
4. I was a kid pitcher in those days and I often used the mud on a new ball – when we were lucky enough to get one.” After experimenting with the Burlington County mud he remembered from his childhood, and adding a secret ingredient, he later gave a can of it to Geisel to de-gloss the new baseballs.

Soon afterward, as the story goes, every American League team was getting a supply of the odorless, greaseless, and as smooth as pudding mud from Blackburne at a very reasonable price. Being a longtime Junior Circuit man, Blackburne resisted selling his mud to the National League until the mid-1950s.

• Blackburne’s big league career record as a good-field, no-hit infielder featured 550 games with four different teams, mainly the White Sox, a team he also managed for two seasons.
• But he may be most remembered for what he did off the field when he developed a business dredging mud from the bottom of a Delaware River tributary.

Having been in professional baseball dating back to 1908, either as a player, coach, scout or manager, Blackburne often marveled at his new role in the game being in the mud supply business. “This isn’t a business; it’s a hobby,” Blackburne said. “Besides, what I get I share with my wife.

She called it her ‘mud money.’ “I’ve stuck in baseball,” he added, “because I got stuck in the mud.” When he passed away in 1968 at the age of 81, with the knowledge that every baseball put into play from March to October is rubbed down with Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud, the first paragraph of his New York Times obituary referenced his late-in-life role in the game: ” originated the idea of rubbing mud on new baseballs to remove their slippery finish ” After taking loads of the New Jersey mud home, usually between fall and spring, Blackburne would filter it, then add a special something that would make it non-staining and smooth as cold cream.

The concoction seemed to contain a superfine grit that could scuff a baseball’s cover evenly with the mud nearly invisibly. Bill Kinnamon, an American League umpire during the 1960s, once said: “There’s something about this mud. I don’t know how to explain it.

It takes the shine off without getting the ball excessively dark.” According to Blackburne, working the mud through a sieve “takes out any stones. They would wreck a ball. Of course, umps never let any of this mud get into the stitches of a ball. The balance would be ruined, and pitchers would make the ball perform the aerobatics of a horsefly under a lampshade.” After Blackburne passed away, his mud business, along with all its secrets, was willed to childhood friend John Haas, who had helped out with Blackburne’s affairs.

“Mr. Blackburne made me promise that I would never give away to outsiders the secret of the source of the mud,” Haas said. “He also made me promise that, since he had no children of his own, I would see to it that the business was handed down through the family.” In relatively short order, Haas passed it down to his son-in-law, Burns Bintliff.

• He (Haas) picked me because I was his son-on-law and also because he knew I’d played semipro baseball as a young man on the Burlington County team and had remained a committed baseball bug,” said Burns Bintliff.
• It’s better than tobacco juice and far superior to everyday mud.
• Mud from the Delaware River tributary contains an ultra-fine abrasive that strips off the factory gloss but doesn’t damage the cover, and it doesn’t discolor the ball.” Burns Bintliff would later admit the source of the baseball’s dirtiest secret was somewhere in the south of New Jersey.

“Everybody has their own idea where it comes from. Everybody thinks it’s the Delaware River, but it isn’t,” he said. “I’ll tell you this: Where it comes from is covered at high tide and uncovered at low tide. Other than that, it’s none of your business.

That’s my standard response.” In 1982, a scientific analysis of the rubbing mud conducted at The New York Times’ request found that more than 90 percent of it was finely ground quartz, probably crushed by ice that covered New Jersey during the Pleistocene Epoch more than 10,000 years ago. “The surprise is that there is very little clay in it, so it would be terrible for a potter to use,” said Dr.

Kenneth S. Deffeyes, professor of geology at Princeton University. “The overwhelming mineral in there is quartz, just like sand only finer. It is more than 90 percent quartz in a range of sizes with sharp edges.” Burns Bintliff would ship his topnotch mud in coffee cans his friends and neighbors would leave on his porch.

A one-pound coffee can could hold three pounds of mud and last a whole season. “I don’t make much money from this,” Burns Bintliff said. “But my raw material costs me nothing and the supply will last forever. “I wish I could raise my prices in proportion to what the ballplayers get in salaries. But the traffic wouldn’t bear it.

I’m in this for the thrill,” he added. “I watch baseball on TV. Can you imagine how I feel knowing I’ve had something to do with every pitch at every single ballpark?” What money the Bintliff’s did receive from their mud business went toward an annual getaway.

It gives us enough to pay for the family vacation every year – and it’s always the same vacation,” said Burns Bintliff. “My wife, Betty, who’s the executive vice president and accountant of the business – she handles all the paperwork – and I go up to Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.” A can of Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud was donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1968 and was part of the Museum’s Evolution of Equipment exhibit for many years.

Bill Francis is the senior research and writing associate at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Where does MLB get its mud?

History – Before the discovery of the rubbing mud, baseballs were rubbed in a mixture of water and infield soil, but this method usually discolored the ball’s leather surface. Other alternatives at the time were tobacco juice, shoe polish, and soil from under stadium bleachers,

1. They were able to successfully take off the sheen from baseballs, but at the same time, they also damaged and scratched the ball’s leather.
2. While Lena Blackburne was a third-base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics (now based in Oakland, California ), an umpire complained to him about the method used at the time, prompting Blackburne in 1938 to set out in search of better mud to use to rub against baseballs.

Later that decade, Blackburne discovered the rubbing mud’s location (said to be “near” Palmyra, New Jersey ) and founded the company that he used to sell it – Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud. According to the company, the entire American League used the mud soon after its discovery, and by the 1950s, it was in use by every Major League Baseball (MLB) team, along with some minor league and college teams.

• When advancing age prevented him from harvesting the mud, Blackburn, who died in 1968, left the company to a friend, John Haas; according to the company, Haas had accompanied Blackburne during his searches for an appropriate mud.
• Haas later left the company to his son-in-law Burns Bintliff, who in turn selected one of his nine children, current owner Jim, to carry on the business.

Jim Bintliff told CNN in 2009 that the company only brought in about $ 20,000 per year; at the time, he worked full-time as a printing press operator. The mud originates from the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, The mud is cleaned and screened before sale.

Each year Jim Bintliff visits the mud’s source and returns with 1,000 pounds (454 kg) of it to store over the winter and sells it the following baseball season. Bintliff told CNN: If anybody happens to catch me in the act of harvesting mud, I come up with a story to give them a reason I’m putting mud in a bucket.

I’ve told people I use it in my garden, I use it for my rose bushes, I use it for bee stings and poison ivy and any kind of story.

What is the special mud for MLB balls?

Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud 3011 Devon Ave. Longport, NJ 08403 Phone: 609-412-4837

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Photo of Lena Blackburne (center) with Eddie Collins (left) and Ty Cobb (right)

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Baseball Rubbing Mud 3011 Devon Ave. Longport, NJ 08403 Phone: 609-412-4837 Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud, all rights reserved. :

Why do pitchers switch balls?

End Call – The practice of switching out the balls in baseball serves as a vital component in maintaining fairness, consistency, and player preferences. By replacing the ball regularly, umpires ensure a level playing field for pitchers and batters alike.

The MLB’s commitment to providing new baseballs for each game reinforces the integrity of the sport. So, the next time you watch a baseball game, take a moment to appreciate the behind-the-scenes efforts that go into ensuring that each ball contributes to the timeless beauty of America’s favorite pastime.

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It also gives adults a chance to work on their swing without having to worry about any real balls.

Why do pitchers throw in the dirt?

Wild Pitch (WP) | Glossary | MLB.com A pitcher is charged with a wild pitch when his pitch is so errant that the catcher is unable to control it and, as a result, baserunner(s) advance. (This is an important stipulation. No matter how poor the pitch, a pitcher is only charged with a WP if at least one runner moves up a base, and he cannot be charged with a wild pitch if no one is on base – unless it allows the batter to reach base on a third strike.) Wild pitches have commonality with passed balls – which represent the same thing, but are the fault of the catcher instead of the pitcher.

The decision whether a pitch is ruled a passed ball or a wild pitch is in the hands of the official scorer. But a general rule of thumb is that if the pitch hits the dirt or misses a catcher’s glove altogether, it’s a wild pitch. Certain pitchers who struggle with their control tend to have high wild pitch totals.

As a result, pitchers who allow a high number of walks often allow a higher-than-average number of wild pitches. Pitchers who possess very good curveballs – or any other breaking ball – also are at risk of throwing wild pitches. Sometimes the pitch is intended to bounce in the dirt, with the goal being to deceive the hitter into thinking it’s crossing the strike zone at his knees before plummeting into the ground.

How fast is a MLB line drive?

Curve Balls Sweet Spot / Corked Bats / Questec-MLB Zone Evaluation A ball that would travel 400 feet in “normal” conditions goes: 6 feet farther if the altitude is 1,000 feet higher 4 feet farther if the air is 10 degrees warmer 4 feet farther if the ball is 10 degrees warmer 4 feet farther if the barometer drops 1 inch of mercury 3 1/2 feet farther if the pitcher is 5 mph faster 30 feet farther if struck with an aluminum bat To hit a ball the maximum possible distance, the trajectory off the bat should have a 35-degree angle.

A line drive travels 100 yards in 4 seconds. A fly to the outfield travels 98 yards in 4.3 seconds. An average head wind (10 mph) can turn a 400-foot home run into a 370-foot routine out. A curveball that seems to break over 14 inches never actually deviates from a straight line more than 3 1/2 inches.

Part of the ball’s deviation from a straight line is governed by the equation: P=P R -P L =1/2 air which describes the magnitude of the pressure differential between the left and right sides of a rotating, thrown baseball. here is no possible way (excluding softball) to throw a rising fastball that actually rises.

Excluding meteorologically strange conditions, a batted ball cannot travel longer than 545 feet. The collision of a bat and baseball lasts only approximately 1/1000 of a second. Good news for batters: The “muzzle velocity” of a pitched baseball slows down about 1 mph every 7 feet after it leaves the pitcher’s hand, that’s a loss of roughly 8 mph by the time it crosses the plate.

Bad news for batters: If you swing 1/100th of a second too soon a ball will go foul down the left field side (right handed batter).1/100th of a second too late and it’s foul in the right field seats, and the decision to swing has to happen within 4/100th of a second.

Do baseballs decompose?

Annie Deng DES 40A Winter 2018 Baseball Materials The baseball is an object that has evolved over time. Its main manufacturer is the Rawlings Sports Goods Company. It has transformed from being a soft ball to a rounder, hard, and small ball. A few of the raw materials have been changed and replaced with materials that are more durable, resilient, and efficient. For example, the baseball used to have a round rubber core, but now it is a cork. As the production of baseballs became a prominent process, there was more uniformity for what materials should be used and how baseballs should be made (“Baseball.”). The purpose of this research paper is to explore how and what raw materials are used in the production, manufacturing, recycling, and waste management of baseballs. The entire life cycle of a baseball includes where the materials come from to create the baseball to when it gets recycled or disposed. By assessing the raw materials used in the life cycle of a baseball, we become more aware of how much energy is used to process the materials together and where the sources of baseball materials come from. We also begin to understand that not all of the raw materials that are used in the process of manufacturing a baseball will always be sustainable in the future if we use the materials at a faster rate than they can be renewed. There are three main components that make up a baseball: a cork coated with layers of rubber in the center, the wool windings in the middle section, and the leather that covers the outside of the baseball (“Baseball.”). For the raw materials acquisition stage, the main raw materials associated in the production of a baseball consists of cowhide leather, latex, and wool. “Raw materials come in from Tennessee, New York, Alabama and Ohio” (Luxner). For the manufacturing stage, there are many raw materials that are used, such as cowhide, rubber, fabric, and the cork. The leather exterior of a baseball is made from cowhide. Before 1974, the baseball exterior was made from horsehide. Rawlings Sporting Goods Company is the main producer of baseballs and it generates approximately 2.4 millions baseball every year. The company gets a majority of its cowhides from Pennsylvania, where Cargill’s beef plant is located. Holstein dairy cattle are known to be the best suited for creating baseball leather due to their hides being thinner. Their hides are also smoother compares to the hides of other cows in the United States. The white leather is produced in a tannery in Tennessee and then it is transported to factories in Costa Rica where it can be stitched on baseballs. Baseball leather needs to appear perfect, so great effort is made to minimize defects in cow hides. Waxed red thread is used to stitch the leather together. The red threads are known as seams, which are made out of cotton (Weber). Cowhides must go through examinations in order to make sure they are thick and strong enough before they receive approval for the production process (“Baseballs.”). The center core of a baseball consists of a cork and surrounded by a rubber covering. Rubber was the main material that made up the core of a baseball. The core needs to be covered with a layer of black semi-hardened rubber and then another red rubber layer that cushions the cork. In 1910, the A.J. Reach & Company started producing baseballs that had a cork in the center covered with a hardened layer of rubber, which made the new baseball more bouncy, strong, and sturdy. Japan was a country where the U.S. got its rubber supplies from before World War II. During the war, the use of natural rubber was prohibited unless it was for the war effort. Therefore, balata, a tropical American tree, was temporarily used as a replacement for crude rubber. However, the balata was not as resilient as crude rubber. In 1944, rubber production resumed and more synthetic rubber was produced. Synthetic rubber started to become a huge development in countries such as the United States and Germany. Synthetic rubbers are made from petrochemicals. Neoprene is one of the most popular brand of synthetic rubbers and it is made from mixing acetylene and hydrochloric acid together (Woodford). In modern times, the main producers of synthetic rubber are still the U.S. and Germany, along with France and Russia. Now, rubber is a crucial material needed to manufacture a baseball (Klein). Natural rubber is a stretchy material that is harvested from white gooey liquid known as latex. Latex is a raw material that comes from many different plants such as dandelions and tree such as the Hevea brasiliensis, which is more commonly known as the rubber tree. Latex oozes out from the stems of plants or from the bark of the rubber tree. Approximately 99% of the world uses natural rubber from the rubber tree. The rubber tree is originally from Brazil, but it was later introduced to Far East countries including Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia (Woodford). When rubber is manufactured, different types of additives are used in the mixing process to give different effects to the rubber. These additives include polymers, fillers (carbon black), vulcanisation agents, and colorants. Fillers (carbon black) are for making the rubber stronger and stiffer. To make vulcanized rubber that is needed for the baseball, the latex needs to be heated. Sulfur and vulcanising agents like tellurium and selenium are needed for the heating process, but sulfur is the most common chemical that is used (“Recycling of Rubber.”). The raw material used for making corks is harvested from the cork oak tree. Most of the commercial cork oak trees are grown in the western Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula. “Portugal’s cork forests are the most productive. Accounting for 30% of the existing trees, they produce half of the world’s harvested cork.” (“Cork.”) When a cork tree is around 20 years old, that means it is ready for its first harvest for corks. However, the first harvest is generally not the best quality. The harvests after the first harvest, is when the corks are higher quality due to the increase in thickness of the corks. When harvesting from a younger cork tree, approximately 35 pounds of cork can be extracted. When harvesting from an older cork tree, approximately 500 pounds of cork can be extracted (“Cork.”). Wool yarn is a fabric that is a secondary material used during the manufacturing process of a baseball when machines are used to wrap the wool around the baseball core. In the midsection of a baseball, there are four different layers of wool and poly-cotton windings that surround the core. (Davenport) The first three layers are made of wool yarn. Wool yarn is made from different raw materials such as the wool fibers produced from sheep, goats, rabbits, and other similar species. Wool can be obtained from these animal species in regions like New Zealand, Australia, China, and Eastern Europe. Wool fibers are natural materials that is also known as the protein, keratin, that generally comes in different lengths depending on the breeding type of sheep (“Wool.”). The fourth outermost layer is a winding of a blend of poly-cotton yarn. Poly-cotton blend is mixture of polyester and cotton. Cotton is a commodity that is grown globally as a cash crop. However, it is mostly harvested from Africa, South America, and southern United States. Polyester is a synthetic material created from petrochemicals (Litherland). By weaving together the raw material of cotton and the synthetic material of polyester, a new secondary material, poly-cotton, is produced. After the four layers of yarn are wrapped together to surround the core, an adhesive is used to glue the yarns to the cowhide exterior (“Baseball.”). Producing wool also requires water and different chemicals in order to change the extracted wool from animals into high quality wool fibers. The raw wool that is directly extracted from sheep contains several contaminants such as grease, sand, dirt, and sweat. In order to wash off the contaminants, water, alkali, soda ash, and soap are needed (“Wool.”). For the distribution and transportation stages, mainly trucks and planes are used to transfer materials such as cowhide to factories in Costa Rica. Therefore, materials that are used during this process are jet fuel and gas. Jet fuel, also known as aviation fuel, comes from refined oil and it consists mainly of kerosene. Jet fuels are predominantly made from crude oil, which is a liquid petroleum. Jet fuels can also be derived from a natural material inside shale, fine-grained sedimentary rocks. The natural material found in shale is called kerogen (“Aviation Fuel”). The raw material used for the production of gasoline is crude oil or petroleum. Crude oil and petroleum can be gathered from drilling underground in wells or reservoirs. Crude oil is derived from the remains of dead animals and plants on the bottom of the seafloor mixed with mud. As the remains are covered with more sediment, they form into crude oil along with the increases in pressure and temperature. Different chemicals such as octane and heptane are added into gasolines to prevent combustion (“Gasoline or petrol.”). For the recycling of baseballs, generally all of the baseball materials can be recycled or biodegradable. These materials include the wool yarn, rubber, and leather from animals. Leathers such as the cow leather is a textile that can be recyclable and repurposed for other goods. Due to the abundance of rubber in many objects such as baseballs, recycling rubber has started to become a more prevalent process, which helps to prevent rubber from filling in landfills. Recycling rubber is important because the process is less energy intensive than generating new rubber. Furthermore, when rubber is recycled, it lowers the demand for harvesting natural rubber. The importance of recycling rubber is that it will help sustain the environment by preventing rubber tree plantations from increasing and growing into more ecosystems (“Is Rubber Recyclable?”). Recycling rubber is a chemical process. Acid reclamation is a chemical process that requires hot sulphuric acid and heat in order to break down the rubber efficiently. Another process is known as alkali recovery, which uses alkali mixed with heat in order to reclaim and recover the vulcanized and hardened rubber (“Recycling of Rubber.”). When leather is recycled, there are several materials that are added in the process. First it is grinded into shredded pieces and water is added to this process. After, the mix is combined with binding materials like acacia wood bark and natural rubber (“Leather.” ). As for waste management and re-use process, I was unable to find any relevant information related to baseballs. In conclusion, a lot of the raw materials come from natural sources such as trees, plants, and animals. However, the gathering of these raw materials that are used may possibly pose severe environmental consequences because it takes a lot of energy and resources to harvest trees and feed animals. Therefore, if we are consuming and using these raw materials at a faster rate that these materials can be renewed, it is not very sustainable for the environment. Bibliography 1. “Aviation Fuel.” 20 Apr.2012, web.archive.org/web/20120420064213/http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolutio n_of_Technology/fuel/Tech21.htm.2. “Baseball.” How Products Are Made, www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Baseball.html.3. “Cork.” How Products Are Made, www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Cork.html.4. Davenport, Matt. “What’s in baseballs, and can materials explain a spike in scoring?” CEN RSS, 20 June 2017, cen-cc-origin.acs.org/articles/95/i26/s-baseballs-materials-explain-spike.html.5. Exploratorium. “Inside Baseball: What Gives a Baseball Its Bounce?” Scientific American, 18 Sept.2014, www.scientificamerican.com/article/inside-baseball-what-gives-a-baseball-its-bounce/.6. “Gasoline or petrol.” Econtrader Technology, technology.econtrader.com/gasoline.htm.7. “Is Rubber Recyclable?” Home Guides | SF Gate, homeguides.sfgate.com/rubber-recyclable-79758.html.8. Klein, Christopher. “The Rubbery History of the Baseball.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 28 Oct.2015, www.history.com/news/the-rubbery-history-of-the-baseball.9. “Leather.” Business Recycling, businessrecycling.com.au/recycle/leather.10. Litherland, Neal. “How Is Poly Cotton Made?” Our Everyday Life, 28 Sept.2017, oureverydaylife.com/how-is-poly-cotton-made-12203154.html.11. Luxner, Larry. “BASEBALL MAKER DEMONSTRATES IMPRESSIVE DELIVERY.” JOC, 18 Sept.1989, www.joc.com/baseball-maker-demonstrates-impressive-delivery_19890918.html.12. “Recycling of Rubber.” Practical Action, www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/RRC/documents/recycling_rubber.pdf.13. Weber, Liz. “Play ball! When it comes to baseball leather, not just any hide will do.” Play ball! When it comes to baseball leather, not just any hide will do | Cargill, 27 July 2016, www.cargill.com/story/play-ball.14. Woodford, Chris. “Rubber: A simple introduction.” Explain that Stuff, 20 Aug.2017, www.explainthatstuff.com/rubber.html.15. “Wool.” How Products Are Made, www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Wool.html. Jiaqi Huang DES 40A Winter 2018 Baseball: Embodied Energy Baseball is played throughout all ages and levels, from Little League to the MLB. It was first introduced into American history during the Civil War (1861-1865) and was known as a game called rounders, which was actually a game played by English children using a ball and cricket. However, many theories have been put forth as to where as the original game originates from, as a ball and bat games have appeared throughout history. More interestingly, from this emerged some of America’s most memorable sport heroes, e.g. Babe Ruth, Mel Ott,.etc, and what we know today as one of America’s national pastime. In early baseball history, “no two baseballs were identical” which eventually led to inconsistent games known as “Dead-Ball Era” (Rymer) until 1876, when the National Baseball League was established and a professional pitcher, A.G. Spalding lent his baseball design to be the modern standard of baseball, later applied by the Rawlings company, who become the official MLB ball supplier. As of 2005, the MLB is estimated to use nearly 900,000 balls each year, most of them given to fans or lost in game progress, it’s a rare moment for professional league balls to be thoroughly used. It’s expected every year that the numbers will increase. This essay will analyze the embodied energy used in a baseball’s lifecycle, which is the accumulated energy from its raw material acquisition, to production, and then final use to compare how it’s currently used compared to its energy costs. Throughout historical baseball games, many materials were used and tested by ordinary players and professionals alike. Often times, the ball’s material deciding the game’s experience. So in 1876 when A.G. Spalding introduced his design, the recommended materials used in baseball were set. In present times, Rawlings has a simple list of materials and via through deals with other American companies, is able to gather the necessary ingredients to create the MLB’s ball, “MLB leaves no room for creativity in the manufacture of the balls it uses” (“Baseballs”). The raw materials of a baseball is primarily made of four things and is assembled in this order: cork, rubber, yarn (wool and synthetic), and leather. It is assumed all of the materials are sent directly to Rawlings’ factories in Costa Rica for assembly either through water, ground, and/or flight method and then received using human labor to production location. The entire transportation route from original source to the factories means a lot of energy was used since many locations were involved. Therefore each material probably required ground vehicles, ships, and/or air-freight planes, which use fuel/coal to power their engines and human drivers; Chemical, kinetic, and gravitational energy are all involved. The cork comes from an unnamed company in Mississippi and it this paper assumes that cork acquisition is similar if not same for all companies. “Cork is composed of dead cells that accumulate on the outer surface of the cork oak tree” (“Cork”). First, machine harvesters are used to cut off cork layers on the tree, they act like big knives, so a swinging action is used meaning kinetic and electrical energy (which may be assumed throughout paper from another primary source and through a energy source converted into energy) is expended by the machine which includes the human operator. Next, chemical energy takes place as the cork planks are left out to cure through several months. The final process uses human labor and machine to prepare cork for different final production methods, depending on its purpose. The most common energy used in the latter are kinetic and chemical such as when the workers move the planks around and treat them with water and chemicals, and machines cutting the planks again. The location of where Rawlings obtains its rubber is not disclosed. It is also probable that the rubber is synthetic given: “Synthetic rubber was being mass-produced in the States by 1944, and there was plenty of it for baseballs” (Rymer), increasing demand for natural rubber may also contribute to this probability. However the processes between natural and synthetic are different, whereas the latter is mostly chemical reactions happening in a lab, natural rubber is almost exclusively obtained in South America, home to the main rubber tree: Hevea brasiliensis, Natural rubber acquisition requires human labor throughout its process. Although both processes use chemical energy, natural rubber is less dependent on it and more on humans tapping and collecting sap, kinetic energy, whereas synthetic is vice versa. The yarn again comes from an unnamed company in Vermont but another source also points to New Zealand as the yarn source. Although four types of yarn are used in the baseball, with the first three being wool and the last one a poly material, the energy expended to make them is generally same. “Yarn consists of several strands of material twisted together. Each strand is, in turn, made of fibers, all shorter than the piece of yarn that they form. These short fibers are spun into longer filaments to make the yarn” (“Yarn”). Yarn is usually made from sheep’s wool, and mostly expands kinetic and electrical energy in form of human labor using machines. Present yarn production is quite automized compared to the past, rarely requiring human labor but it still requires worker to set up the raw materials into the machinery. The raw materials go through several machines, each one spinning and combing the strings into yarn. Most of the energy in this production is electrical and kinetic most of which produced by the engines in the machine and their movements. The final material is cowhide turned leather. To acquire their signature white balls, Rawlings currently uses Tennessee Tanning Company’s leather from Holstein cowhide. Base off standard tanning procedures and pictures from the company’s website, it seems most steps involve chemically altering the hide. “The conventional tanning process takes the hide through as many as 15 steps—from soaking, liming, and pickling to tanning, dyeing, and fatliquoring” (Short). The purpose of each step is to break the natural bonds in hide, and a lot of chemical energy is expended in order to break those bonds. While many chemical products are used, tanning is also a heavy labor job, as workers have wash and dry hide multiple times before the final product is finished. This procedure is mostly uses chemical and kinetic energy. During this part of the research process, I had messaged the company to find more about their basic shipping methods and received this reply about the inquiry: “proprietary information we cannot share” (TN Tanning). As noted before, trucks, ships, and freight-planes are mostly used to transport the materials to Rawlings’ factories “in the town of Turrialba in central Costa Rica” (Josephs). Once materials are gathered and prepared by workers, it takes about a week to create the baseballs, which includes production and drying time. Production is split into three main parts and quality checks are done after production. The first part is making the pill, the baseball’s inner cork sphere surrounded by black and then red rubber. This part requires a machine in order meet the precise measurements set by the MLB. Afterwards, the pills are transferred to a drum machine and coated with rubber cement. After the pill is the center, which is essentially a yarn encased pill done in four layers. Once again a spinning machine is used, this time to tightly wound yarn around the pill. After the four layers are finished, human labor is reintroduced and is essential in sewing the leather onto the center. This finale process has not been automated yet, although inventors have tried, it is hard because sewing requires human sense of pressure. Most of the manufacturing process involved machines, given MLB’s incline to uniformity, but the final part is labor intensive. Most energies used in this process are electrical, kinetic, and a little bit of chemical (chemical adhesives are used on the pill). It’s shocking to discover how much hand work goes into one baseball, with its 108 stitches as humanly perfect distributed around the ball and then see a professional player lose it after one successful home run. Quality checks are done by pitching machines that act like mini cannons, firing randomly selected balls from each shipment. The balls are fired at a wall made of northern white ash, the official wood used for MLB bats. These machines are most likely powered by electricity since they are portable and relatively small. I did not find where the balls were being tested, nor other quality checkers involving massive energy use. However, before games, the umpire(s) will expand labor to rub the balls with a special clay in addition to checking the balls’ uniformity. After Costa Rica, one location which the balls are shipped to is Miami, Florida. It’s most likely that the packaged balls are trucked to a freight plane then flown to various location as many retailers feature the Rawlings’ signature ball in their catalog. A google search of “MLB baseball” alone showed multiple places to purchase the ball. This process costs human labor, vehicle fuel, aviation fuel, which all contain potential energy and become kinetic (once the transporter moves, all the human labor involved), chemical (burning the diesel), and distribution and transportation of the market ready balls. We can also include energy used by Rawlings and other retailers when they advertise and/or sell the ball online. With wide distribution and each respective purchased ball shipped costing some energy, this contributes a significant amount of to the baseball’s embodied energy. The MLB collaborates with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to be ecofriendly in its operation. The NRDC is “an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 2 million members and online activists” (“Get Started”) whose focus is on protecting natural resources, public health, and the environment. However, other than this organization, neither MLB or Rawlings takes special measures to recycle the baseball. At the end of games, baseballs will be either lost, in the hands of a fan, “recycled into batting practice ball”, or “sometimes ship them down to the minor league system” but ultimately “in the major leagues, baseballs are discarded without any thought given to it” (foxsports). Real recycling may happen when the baseballs hit the landfill, which expands energy as trucks have to move it around and cranes further move it in the landfill. However, no research is available yet as to if the balls are or can be broken down to be recycled and then reused. As of March 2015, MLB alone commissions 2.4 million balls from Rawlings, before its Costa Rican factory foreclosure later that year in September. However, this is only because Rawlings have moved to El Salvador where ” is more cost-effective, with a higher manufacturing volume” (Rico). Although this change may be better for production costs in terms of money, Rawlings probably doesn’t want to address how their baseballs are used in the MLB, where the “life span of a baseball is indeed more than two pitches, though not by much” (foxsport). When reviewing the baseball’s life cycle through analyzing its embodied energy, the sport doesn’t seem sustainable for the amount of energy and effort its costs. Bibliography 1. “Baseball in America: A History” Fact Monster. © 2000–2017 Sandbox Networks, Inc., publishing as Fact Monster.6 Mar.2018 https://www.factmonster.com/sports/baseball/baseball-america-history/ >.2. “History of Baseball.” WBSC, www.wbsc.org/baseball/history-of-baseball/,3. Rymer, Zachary D. “The Evolution of the Baseball From the Dead-Ball Era Through Today.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 12 Apr.2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/1676509-the-evolution-of-the-baseball-from-the-dead-ball-era-through-today,4. Roth, Mark. “MLB: The true life story of baseballs.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 22 May 2005, old.post-gazette.com/pg/05142/508138.stm,5. “Baseball.” How Products Are Made, www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Baseball.html,6. “Cork.” How Products Are Made, www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Cork.html,7. “Yarn.” How Products Are Made, wwww.madehow.com/Volume-3/Yarn.html,8. Gent, Alan N. “Rubber.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 23 May 2016, www.britannica.com/science/rubber-chemical-compound,9. “Baseballs.” WHAT’S THAT STUFF? – Baseballs, 29 Mar.1999, pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7713scit3.html,10. Short, Patricia. “What’s that stuff? Leather.” CEN RSS, cen.acs.org/articles/85/i28/Leather.html.11. Josephs, Leslie. “Made in Costa Rica: U.S. Major League baseballs.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 9 Mar.2010, www.reuters.com/article/us-costarica-baseballs/made-in-costa-rica-u-s-major-league-baseballs-idUSTRE62831Z20100309,12. TN Tanning. “Re: Form Submission.” Received by Jiaqi Huang, 13 Mar.2018.13. “Energy Use for Transportation.” Energy Use for Transportation – Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy – Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transportation,14. “Get Started.” MLB, mlb.greensports.org/.15. “Major League Baseballs Dirty Little Secret.” Now I Know, nowiknow.com/major-league-baseballs-dirty-little-secret/,16. Rico. “Rawlings Announced Closure of Costa Rica Plant, 200 Lay Offs.” Q Costa Rica, 24 Sept.2017, qcostarica.com/rawlings-announced-closure-of-costa-rica-plant-200-lay-offs/.17. Foxsports. “Major league baseballs have a short shelf-Life.” FOX Sports, 30 June 2012, www.foxsports.com/other/story/major-league-baseballs-have-a-short-shelf-life-062912. Rachel Delgadillo DES 40A Winter 2018 Baseball: Waste Management Baseball is a classic all-American sport, so it is no wonder that millions of baseballs are manufactured and sold each year. However, each individual baseball has its own lifecycle that often extends far beyond how long we use and own them. These lifecycles factor in the waste that baseballs create which has an impact on our environment. In order to be responsible consumers, it is important that we understand the lifecycle of a baseball and what kind of waste one baseball can create – more specifically, a Rawlings baseball can create. Before starting any game of baseball a baseball needs to be supplied. For Major League Baseball the official supplier of baseballs is Rawlings. Rawlings has been the official Major League Baseball supplier since 1977, however the company itself has been in business since 1887. Rawlings opened its first factory in St.Louis, Mo and later moved its production to Haiti then the beautiful lands of Turrialba, Costa Rica. Minor League baseballs are also produced in China according to journalist Ron Cervenka. It should also be noted that China is the main producer or baseballs world wide, producing approximately 80 percent of baseballs (Broderick). It is unknown how much of that 80 percent is attributed to Rawlings factory in China. This also means that there is another 20 percent left unaccounted for by my research and it is unknown how big of a percentage Rawlings contributes overall to baseball production. However, according to journalist Leslie Josephs, Rawlings factory in Costa Rica produces approximately 2.4 million baseballs a year for the MLB (Major League Baseball). Now, this is a lot of information based on approximations, but it is important to quantify the amount of baseballs being produced in order to better understand the overall waste created by a single baseball. As I have mentioned, 2.4 million baseballs are produced by Rawlings factory in Costa Rica, however there is no further information on what percentage that 2.4 million is of the remaining 20 percent of baseballs not being produced by Rawlings. It should also be noted that, each company producing baseballs are more than likely using the same materials, so when looking at the waste created by the materials, the amount of waste is much larger than the waste created by Rawlings themselves. To make a baseball, cork, rubber, wool yarn, cotton yarn, polyester yarn, cowhide, latex adhesive. Some companies use rubber cement but for Rawlings, latex adhesive is preferred. Sports Illustrated for kids provided great information on the production process of a Rawlings baseball- this will be a good place to start before digging further into each individual material used to make a baseball. According to Sports Illustrated Kids, Holstein cows provide the leather used to make the “casing” for a baseball. How It’s Made specifies that two “casings” are used for one baseball. This leather is sent to Tennessee Tanning Company where the leather is treated with chemicals to make it a “bright white”. After the leather has been treated it is then sent to the Rawlings factory in Costa Rica. The very center of a baseball is called a “pill” and is composed of three layers: a cork center, a black rubber layer, then a red rubber layer. The pill is then coated in latex adhesive to allow the yarn to stick. The “pill” is wrapped by five different layers of yarn. The wool used to make the yarn comes from New Zealand sheep. The “pill” is first wrapped in 121 yards of four-ply blue-gray yarn. The blue-gray yarn is then wrapped in 45 yards of fine white poly-wool yarn, followed by 53 yards of three-ply blue- gray yarn, and then finished with a layer of 150 yards of fine white poly-cotton blend yarn. At this point in production the ball is now referred to as a “center” which is then coated in another layer of latex adhesive. The leather “casings” are then fitted onto the ball and 108 stitches of red yarn are hand stitched to secure it all together. The baseball is then placed in a machine that rolls the ball around to compress everything. The ball then spends the night in an air conditioned room before being stamped by a three headed stamp machine. The baseball is then shipped back to the United States and is sent to a secret location in Delware, New Jersey where it is rubbed with a special mud to remove any gloss – this will improve the grip of the baseball. Now according to Sports Illustrated Kids around 120 baseballs are used per Major League baseball game, and each individual ball only has a life span of about 6-7 pitches. Keeping this in mind, according to How It’s Made, it takes about one full week for one baseball to be made, this is a lot of time and energy being put into a baseball where its tossed out after a few pitches. It is important to note that baseballs that do not meet the MLB standards are sold to the general public and these baseballs often last a bit longer, although my research was not able to find an exact lifespan. As someone who grew up playing baseball, typically the baseball would last about a year or so. Now that we have a basic understanding of how the baseball is made, lets look a little more closely at each material used along this process. Holstein cows are more commonly known as “Dairy Cows” and there are approximately nine million Holstein cows in the United States alone (Holstein Association USA). Roughly ninety million pounds of manure is produced by dairy cows a year according to Yale Environment 306. The website provides great information about manure issues caused by dairy farms and the site states that although manure can be used as a fertilizer, the farms often use the manure as fertilizer, they often have much more manure than they need. As a result, the left over manure is stored in lagoons. Another issue raised by the amount of manure produced by Holstein cows is that there are often issues with spillage where drinking water is contaminated and the manure also creates a nitrogen issue where the levels of nitrogen found in water makes it unsafe to drink. As stated by Yale Environment 360 “In excess, manure’s nutrients — largely nitrogen and phosphorus — can create problems. Too much in surface water can create algae blooms that result in hypoxic or oxygen-deprived dead zones According to the EPA, excess nutrients from agriculture, including chemical fertilizers and dairy manure, are a major source of water pollution across the US”. This is only part of the issue according to the site, they go on to explain that in agricultural areas where there is heavy use of fertilizer, the drinking water also runs the risk of containing any pathogens, antibiotics, and hormones that the cows may possess. In addition, dairy cows contribute to green house gasses which has contributed to global warming. According to the Journal of Dairy Science “Methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes substantially to global warming, accounts for approximately 52% of the greenhouse gas emissions in both developing and developed countries ( FAO, 2010 ). Enteric CH4composes 17% of global methane and is therefore the single largest source of anthropogenic CH4 ( Knapp et al., 2014 ). Agriculture is considered to be the major producer of anthropogenic CH4, and most CH4 is naturally emitted by dairy cows during the microbial fermentation of feed components ( Gerber et al., 2013 )”. Now, there is a lot to be said about the environmental impact of dairy cows, however, the main reason that this is being mentioned is because the main source of cowhide that Rawlings uses comes from Holstein cows and they receive the cowhide from many different farms across the Midwest and even from some areas in Canada according to Ohio State University. Based on what information I was able to find; it is unclear how much cowhide is used by Rawlings. Another main component of the baseball is wool which is acquired from New Zealand Sheep. The same issue regarding waste and emissions is also seen with sheep so there is no need to re explain that issue. According to Sheep 101, one sheep can produce anywhere between two pounds to thirty pounds of wool. Now when searching for information on how much yarn can be made from one pound of wool, there are mixed answers due to the fact that yarn can yield different weights. However, I was able to find from Weavolution, that five pounds of wool can produce about 2500 yards of three- ply yarn, which is about 500 yards of yarn per pound. Based on the findings from Sports Illustrated Kids, it takes about 400 yards of yarn to produce one baseball. It should be noted that the weights of the yarn are all different so this number is by no means exact or correct, it is just an estimate. It was also found that 120 baseballs are used per MLB game, which means that 48,000 yards of yarn or 9,600 pounds of wool – 320 sheep – is wasted each game. This is assuming that the 320 sheep are all producing the maximum of thirty pounds of wool. That is a lot of waste considering that wool/yarn can be used to make other textiles. Cotton based yarn is also used to make baseballs and the wool and cotton yarn is assumed to be produced by factories – no solid evidence was found on this however since Rawlings is a factory, it is a safe assumption that all yarn produced is mass produced. With this assumption in mind the factories producing the yarn will also be contributing to emissions. Moving on to the rubber and cork cores of the baseball. According to Minyanville, Rawlings imports their baseball cores from Muscle Shoals Rubber Company in Batesville, Mississippi. Rubber and cork are both naturally sourced material and can be acquired from the Hevea brasiliensis, also known as the “Rubber Tree”. Rubber is derived from a milky substance called latex. Latex can be acquired by making a “V” cut into the tree and letting the latex seep out and be collected by a cup (Woodford). From here, to make the actual rubber that is widely used, the latex is then mixed with formic acid which causes it to coagulate. Rubber sheets are then made and shipped off. Since rubber is in high demand, the recycling and reuse of rubber is very common according to HomeGuides. The recycling of rubber is more energy efficient that the actual production of rubber. Cork on the other hand is natural and does not cause any deforestation. According to Catavino, cork comes from Oak trees and much like how sheep a shorn, the oak tree is also shaved. This process does not hurt the tree. The cork trees require little rain or nutrition which makes them slightly better for the environment. Cork is the least harmful material used when it comes to the production of a baseball. For the most part this is the basic break down of all the materials used in manufacturing a baseball, with a general idea of how the material is manufactured while keeping in mind the environmental impact. In general, the materials involved in making a baseball can be recycled and are biodegradable. There was no specific information on how a baseball as a whole can be recycles, but it can be assumed that once the stitching is removed, gaining access to the individual materials is fairly simple. Once the baseball has been taken apart, recycling or reuse of the material can be done. Although the materials can be recycled or repurposed, the acquisition of these materials still requires transportation to and from the Rawlings factory, and even in this step do we see waste and emissions. Based on the informational video done by Sports Illustrated Kids on Rawlings baseball, the majority of their materials require shipping via ship primarily. Cowhides are transported from Tennessee and to Rawlings factory in Costa Rica which requires some sort of fuel use. The baseballs themselves are also shipped from Costa Rica and back to the United States. To put it simply, there is a significant amount of fuel used and there was no information found that would provide exactly how much fuel is used by Rawlings, however, there is information on what kind of effects fuel has on the environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency “When oil and gas are extracted, water that had been trapped in the geologic formation is brought to the surface. This “produced water” can carry with it naturally-occurring dissolved solids, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and radioactive materials in concentrations that make it unsuitable for human consumption and difficult to dispose of safely”. Oil and gas drilling also results in methane gas emissions which as mentioned before is a huge contributor to green house gasses which has lead to global warming. Ships also contribute to carbon dioxide emissions and also contribute to ballast water discharge which can harm the marine environment (UK Marine). Ballast water discharge contains materials from plants, animals, various viruses and bacteria. The discharge can introduce non-native and invasive exotic species that can cause ecological damage to marine ecosystems. The discharge can also lead to human health issues. For the most part I was unable to find all the transportation details of the Rawlings company aside from shipment via ships, which I am assuming is the main transportation method used by the company. When it comes to a consumerist economy such as our own, it is hard to keep track of all the different materials being used to produced various products. It is even harder to do so when most of the materials are coming from places that are no where near where we live. A baseball is a fairly simply product – at least so it seems – but even with its minimal required materials, it still creates a large amount of waste and emissions. It is also important to note that in all this research there is still a lot of missing information regarding the overall impact a baseball has on the environment. In order to be a more responsible consumer it is encouraged to research brands and products before they are purchased. If all consumers can manage to be more informed about what it is they are consuming then there is a greater chance for accountability, change, and progression towards a better and more sustainable future. Work Cited “As Dairy Farms Grow Bigger, New Concerns About Pollution.” Yale E360, e360.yale.edu/features/as_dairy_farms_grow_bigger_new_concerns_about_pollution. Blaskey, Sarah. “Costa Rica’s Major League Concern.” The Tico Times Costa Rica, Tico Times, 12 Nov.2014, www.ticotimes.net/2014/11/12/costa-ricas-major-league-concern. Buglar, Beth, et al., directors. How an Official MLB Baseball Is Made, YouTube, Sports Illustrated Kids, 29 June 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddWRAcbg7Fk. Broderick, Evelyn. “What Materials Are Baseballs Made of?” LIVESTRONG.COM, www.livestrong.com/article/341132-what-materials-are-baseballs-made-of/, Cervenka, Ron. “Rawlings Puts the Ball in Baseball.” Think Blue LA, 17 Oct.2012, www.thinkbluela.com/2012/10/rawlings-puts-the-ball-in-baseball/, “Environmental Impacts of Ballast Water Sourced from Ports and Harbours,” Environmental Impacts of Ballast Water Sourced from Ports and Harbours, www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/ports/ph6_2_4.htm. “First Spinning Class Question.” First Spinning Class Question | Weavolution, weavolution.com/forum/chat/first-spinning-class-question-18260. Henry, Dr.Beverly. “Environmental Impacts of Wool Textiles.” IWTO, International Wool Textile Organisation, 2016, www.iwto.org/news/environmental-impacts-wool-textiles, “The Hidden Costs of Fossil Fuels.” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/clean- energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/hidden-cost-of-fossils#.WqCF2zO-KCQ. Holstein 101, Holstein Association USA, www.holsteinusa.com/holstein_breed/holstein101.html. “How Its Made: Baseballs.” YouTube, Science Channel, 22 Mar.2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXS9dfzUbxw. “Is Rubber Recyclable?” Home Guides | SF Gate, homeguides.sfgate.com/rubber-recyclable- 79758.html. Josephs, Leslie. “Made in Costa Rica: U.S. Major League Baseballs.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 9 Mar.2010, www.reuters.com/article/us-costarica-baseballs/made-in-costa-rica-u-s-major- league-baseballs-idUSTRE62831Z20100309. “Part 1: The Real Cork – Where Does Cork Come from?” Food and Wine Tours in Portugal and Spain, 23 Feb.2018, catavino.net/part-1-the-real-cork-where-does-cork-come-from/. “Predicting Methane Emissions of Lactating Danish Holstein Cows Using Fourier Transform Mid- Infrared Spectroscopy of Milk.” Journal of Dairy Science, Elsevier, 13 Sept.2017, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030217308615. “Rawlings Baseball Gloves – Raw Materials.” Rawlings Baseball Gloves, u.osu.edu/rawlings/sample-page/. Rohrlich, Justin. “Not Made in the USA: Rawlings.” Minyanville, Minyanville, 25 Sept.2009, www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/rawlings-baseball-league-sports- basketball-pucks/9/25/2009/id/24057. “Rubber: A Simple Introduction.” Explain That Stuff, 20 Aug.2017, www.explainthatstuff.com/rubber.html. Sheep 101: Wool Production, www.sheep101.info/wool.html. Taylor, LaVonne. “History of the Rawlings Baseball.” LIVESTRONG.COM, Leaf Group, 11 Sept.2017, www.livestrong.com/article/270577-history-of-the-rawlings-baseball/. Weiner, Tim. “Low-Wage Costa Ricans Make Baseballs for Millionaires.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Jan.2004, www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/world/low-wage-costa- ricans-make-baseballs-for-millionaires.html

Why do baseballs turn brown?

The baseballs with ‘Haiti’ placed under the Rawlings logo stamp were made without the use of distilled water, thus, allowing for enzymes to potentially turn the color of the ball over time. You will usually notice yellow/brown soiling on these baseballs due to the flaw in production.

What are dead baseballs?

Dead Ball | Glossary | MLB.com A dead ball is a ball that is out of play. The ruling of a dead ball halts the game and no plays can legally occur until the umpire resumes the game, though baserunners can advance as the result of acts that occurred while the ball was live.

Dead balls are frequent occurrences during a game, and the dead-ball period typically does not last long before the ball is put back into play. Dead balls most frequently occur when a batted ball becomes a foul ball or a fair ball is hit out of the playing field. Other common instances in which the ball is ruled dead include a batter being hit by a pitch, a balk, an illegal collision at home plate, obstruction of a baserunner, interference with a fielder’s right of way, spectator interference, a batter or runner being granted time out by the umpire and a fair batted ball striking an umpire or runner.

If a fair ball gets lodged in the outfield wall padding – or the ivy, in the case of Wrigley Field – it is a ground-rule double. On all ground-rule doubles, the ball is dead, the batter-runner goes to second and all additional runners are permitted to move up two bases from the one they occupied at the time of the pitch.

Who pays for baseballs used in an MLB game?

Ultimately, the League itself buys all the various baseballs from Rawlings as a series of installments covering a season, and then distributes them to the 30 franchises as a series of shipments.

Which baseball team spends the most?

New York Mets — $334,233,332 – The Mets had the second-highest payroll in 2022 ($259,080,090), and after an incredible offseason spending spree, they’ve increased it by 29% this season to sit 126% higher than the league average. Owner Steve Cohen was anything but shy when writing checks during the 2022-23 offseason, signing Justin Verlander (two years, $86.6 million), José Quintana (two years, $26 million), Kodai Senga (five years, $75 million), and a slew of other top free agents.

Brandon Nimmo (eight years, $162 million), Edwin Diaz (five years, $102 million), Adam Ottavino (two years, $14.5 million), and Jeff McNeil (four years, $50 million) were also re-signed, so it’s no shock that New York currently leads the league on payroll spending. With more than $334 million on the books in 2023, the Mets are expected to pay over $103 million in tax penalties this year.

Only time will tell if this exorbitant spending is enough to see New York take home their first World Series title since 1986. Jeff McNeil RBI 🤩 Vote 👉 https://t.co/c9K6rkBFRV pic.twitter.com/p3Ellzjwz0 — New York Mets (@Mets) June 16, 2022

Which baseball team has the most money to spend?

Top spenders: 81% of all money has been spent by just eight teams: Yankees ($573.5 million), Giants ($463.2 million), Mets ($461.7 million), Phillies ($387 million), Padres ($326 million), Cubs ($265.3 million), Rangers ($229.7 million) and Red Sox ($141.5 million).

How much are home run ball worth?

Aaron Judge’s record-setting 62nd home run ball sells for $1.5 million at auction Getty Images The ball from star American League record-setting 62nd home run of the 2022 season sold for $1.5 million with a buyer’s premium on Saturday night., the ball is the second most expensive baseball ever to be sold at auction. The ball was sold through collectibles marketplace Goldin by Cory Youmans, who caught the record-setting ball during the Yankees’ Oct.4 game against the,

1. While the ball ended up selling for a lucrative price, the ball’s selling price fell short of the $3.05 million record set by Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball in 1998.
2. Youmans, a vice president at Fisher Investments, had hoped that the ball would either end up with Judge, with the Yankees, or at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

The ball was ultimately purchased by an anonymous buyer. “Multiple players have hit more home runs in a season, but in many people’s eyes, Aaron Judge is the true record-holder,” read a statement by Goldin executive chairman and founder Ken Goldin to ESPN.

1. The fact that this is the second-highest total ever paid for a baseball speaks to the respect that fans and collectors have for Aaron.
2. That’s the magic of sports – this ball didn’t only change Aaron’s life, it changed the life of the fan who was in the stadium that night, too.
3. We’re so proud to have been trusted by Cory to present this piece of history for public auction.” Despite the fact that Judge’s historic season helped earn him, the Yankees slugger was allegedly not among those who put a bid in for the ball that put his 2022 season into the record books.

Prior to signing his contract extension, Judge had told reporters in November that he did not plan to bid on the ball at auction. : Aaron Judge’s record-setting 62nd home run ball sells for $1.5 million at auction