Expert: Tom Schott - 2/22/2008

Question
What year did baseballs start being made by machines and is there any difference in the baseballs being used to day then say during Babe Ruth's era (yarn being wound tighter, etc)?

Answer
Jim,

 http://www.fogdog.com/fog-the-history-of-the-baseball--bg-527303.html
 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7713scit3.html
 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=235658
 http://www.pennridge.org/p/p-baseball.html

have information on the history of the baseball. Apparently they were machine-made from professional baseball's early days. That is the horsehide (and later cowhide) is cut and the rubber-encased cork center is wound with yarn by machine. All baseballs are hand stitched however. Standards for the technical specifications of the ball got set fairly early on. Beginning about 1920 (the end of the "dead ball" era), improvements in the manufacturing process and a new type of yarn developed during the Great War resulted in the lively ball we are familiar with.