The game stays the same even as baseballs change

According to Major League Baseball’s official rules, “The ball shall be a sphere formed by yarn wound around a small core of cork, rubber or similar material, covered with two strips of white horsehide or cowhide, tightly stitched together. It shall weigh not less than five nor more than 5¼ ounces avoirdupois (based on 16 ounces in a pound) and measure not less than nine nor more than 9¼ inches in circumference.”

In February 2021, The Athletic, reported on the contents of a MLB memo that stated it would be subtly deadening its official Rawlings baseballs – in part by loosening the tension on the first of three wool windings within the ball – with lab reports stating the new balls would fly one to two feet shorter on balls hit over 375 feet.

Prior to the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, a record 6,776 homers were hit during the 2019 regular season.

In baseball parlance, the dead ball era is generally considered the first two decades of the 20th century, when hitting behind runners, stealing bases and swatting the ball in the outfield gaps was the rage. This all changed during the roaring ’20s with Babe Ruth’s arrival.

It was during the 1920s when the majors publicly introduced a livelier ball that raised offensive numbers across the board. This ultimately led to a 1930 season in which the 16 major league teams combined to set 20th century marks with a .296 batting average and 1,565 home runs.

The offensive explosion caused concern among a number of the sport’s leaders, and change was soon on the horizon. The result saw diverging opinions among the two circuits – the American in 1931 remaining with the same baseball while the National League deadened its sphere.

NL President John Heydler, in a February 1931 article in the New York Herald Tribune, tried to put the changes in the ball in context.

“It is virtually the same ball it always has been,” he said. “Back in 1910 a cork center was substituted for rubber. Later small braces were introduced to hold the core in its proper place. The dimensions, weight and general construction of the ball have been the same since 1876, when the National League was started.

“Now we have made a slight change. I anticipate that the players will find fault with it as soon as they start spring training. They will insist that they cannot drive it as they could the old-style ball. But don’t pay any attention to them. They never start hitting in spring training anyway. We won’t know definitely what the effect of the changes will be until the middle of July.”

Sports columnist Westbrook Pegler wrote in August 1931 of the differing points of view regarding the ball’s construction – especially the AL’s high regard for the long ball.

“The National League, it may be remembered, adopted not only the raised stitch for the seams but a slightly thicker cover. The stitches were intended as handles, of a sort, to favor the pitchers in the performance of their art, and the increase in the hide to soften the blow to the sensitive nervous system of the ball.

“The American League adopted the raised stitch, but the American League was more in debt to the home run, and particularly to Babe Ruth’s home runs, for its prosperity. So the heavier cover was not adopted there. If the hitters could get hold of the new ball in the course of the more abrupt hops attributable to the stitching, the ball would still travel as before.”

The results from the 1931 season showed the NL hitters finished with a .277 batting average and 493 homers, compared to a .303 batting average and 892 homers in ’30. In the Junior Circuit, 1931 results league-wide saw a .279 batting average and 576 homers as opposed to a .288 batting average and 673 homers in 1930.

After the 1931 season was over, Heydler – excited that his circuit’s St. Louis Cardinals had captured the World Series – told The Christian Science Monitor that baseball was back where it was a dozen years ago.

“I didn’t have any idea what we were doing to the game,” Heydler admitted. “All we did was have them add about a paper thickness of leather and bind the ball with four strands of thread instead of three. Of course, we thought it might make a slight difference in favor of the pitchers, but we didn’t foresee it would change the whole game and give us our first championship since 1926. That’s what it did, though. The Cardinals realized what had been done. They adopted themselves to that new ball quicker than the other clubs, based their attack and defense on it, and fought their way to the title.

“But that’s not the last of it. It has definitely put the game back where it was 10 or 12 years ago, where a fast, quick-thinking club like the Cardinals has the advantage. The era is slugging is over as far as the National League is concerned. Only two of our teams, the Cardinals and the Giants, really adopted themselves to the new ball this year, but every manager in the league will be playing it for all it’s worth next season.”

Later that decade, the two major leagues again differed on their opinion on the construction of the official ball. In December 1937, the NL voted to deaden the ball while the AL retained its “rabbit.”