Baseball Equipment About

When we will play baseball, we need a lot of special equipment. Everyone knows that bats, balls, and gloves are needed to play the game, but most people don't know how much this equipment has changed through the years.

Gloves

In the beginning baseball players did not wear gloves, they played bare-handed. The first gloves were very thin and only covered the palm of the hand. Today there are several different kinds of gloves. The catcher's mitt is big, round, and padded. The first baseman's mitt is longer than the other fielders' gloves, and an outfielders' glove is larger than an infielders' glove.

Bases

The first bases used in baseball were four-foot high stakes. Too many players ran into them and were hurt, so they tried big flat rocks. Players were still being injured, so they finally filled soft sacks with sand. The modern day bases are made similar to the sand filled bags.

Safety Gear

The first catchers in baseball did not wear any gear for protection. Today's players wear a face-mask, helmet, chest protector, shin guards and a cup. In the past, batters never wore a helmet. In 1952, the Pittsburgh Pirates were the first team to wear helmets. They wore them when they were batting and when they were playing in the field. A few years later, they started to wear them only when batting. The first helmet did not have an ear flap. The ear flap was designed for Little League, and the major leagues copied this feature.

Bats

In the major leagues, only wooden bats are used. The rules say that the bat can only be 42 inches long, and can only be 2 3/4 inches in diameter at the thickest point. White ash is the best wood to use to make a bat. A bat made out of white ash helps absorb some of the shock when hitting a 90 mile-per-hour pitch. Bats are cut and shaped to a hitter's specifications. As many as sixty to seventy bats might be used by one major league player in one season!

Baseballs

All baseballs are made the same size and weight. They are 9 to 9 1/4 inches in circumference and weigh 5 to 5 1/4 ounces. The center of the baseball is cork. The cork ball is covered with rubber. Cotton and wool yarn are tightly wound around the cork and rubber center. 150 yards of cotton yarn (450 feet) and 219 yards of wool yarn (625 feet) are used to make a baseball. If you stretched out the yarn from inside a baseball it would be longer than three football fields! The cover a baseball is made out of cowhide. Two pieces shaped like a peanut are sewn together by hand with exactly 108 stitches. The Rawlings Company makes all the baseballs for the major leagues.