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 photo by robert goodier
For 2 decades, the Rawlings baseball factory, sitting under the shadow of the Turrialba Volcano surrounded by rows of red speckled coffee plants, has never failed to deliver the thousands of baseballs that the Major Leagues consume every season. In response to the demands of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (see the Sally Fields movie “Norma Rae”) Rawlings, the 123 year old sporting goods company first went offshore to manufacture baseballs in 1964 by building a factory in Puerto Rico. However, it became too hot (minimum wage & tax incentive-wise) so they tried Haiti, but it was too hot (military coup-wise) ---then Rawlings tried Costa Rica and it was just right. 
The last 20 years have been a success because of a stable government, tax incentives and an underemployed, talented work force (the price of coffee dropped on the world markets) that found working conditions at Rawlings preferable to swinging a machete or picking coffee from steep hillsides under a hot Costa Rican sun.  modernbaseball.com Even the storage humidity of the cowhide covers is controlled. Despite production challenges, including the necessary delay of three weeks at the Rawlings training school and the burnout rate within the factory, perfect baseballs continue rolling out of Turrialba. Controlling logistics of the various ball ingredients is vital. The 8 foot long cowhides, used for the covers, are shipped from Tullahoma, Tennessee. The yarn and various colors of thread (in some series, the defending team get their colors sewn into the stitching) are sent from Ludlow, Vermont. The cork and rubber centers are shipped in by the Mussel Shoals Rubber Co. of Batesville, Mississippi. Although Rawlings invented machines to wind the yarn around the cores, no one in the world, as of yet, has been able to develop a machine to properly sew on the baseball covers. It has to be done, as it’s been done for over a century, with needle, thread and 2 hands. After these precious Costa Rican products pass their final inspections, deemed worthy for use in “America’s Pastime”, and reach their final “field of dreams” destination, something bizarre happens.  photo by jeff roberson
As a sacred responsibility of the umpires, before each game is allowed to begin, wet, sticky, brown mud is smeared all over the pristine white, perfectly stitched, painstakingly produced baseball, then allowed to dry and wiped off with a towel. Every single ball used in a Major League Baseball game is rubbed in mud---but not just any mud. Beginning in 1920, after the death of Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman, who was hit in the head by a Yankee pitcher named Carl Mays, the Baseball industry has been helping pitchers get a better grip on baseballs.  RAY CHAPMAN (center)  WRIGLEY by al sorenson
From that year forward, “Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud” and mandatory helmets in 1971, have successfully protected batters, as evidenced by the fact that no other batter has ever died on a Major League field since. Baseball is unlike any other sport. It still uses rules, equipment and uniforms from a century ago. Watching a baseball game requires ignoring your watch, keeping track with a pencil in a paper scorebook while the movement of the players flows as it always has---timelessly. For the last 20 years, the little factory in Costa Rica has continued in its isolated mountain time warp, stitching up baseballs for that strange game they play in the United States. Not many of the players, or even the lucky fans who catch a foul ball from the stands, realize what they have in their hands---a golden white orb of hand stitched Costa Rican perfection. *BASEBALL HANDS PHOTO ON HOME PAGE BY REBECCA HALE posted 10-27-2009 |
Sports 
This weekend through the jungle, rainforest and mountainous areas around 
This type of road racing is downright nuts.
