Spalding (company)

Spalding is an American sports equipment manufacturing company. It was founded by Albert Spalding in Chicago in 1876 as a baseball manufacturer, and is today headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It sells softballs through its subsidiary Dudley Sports. In the past, Spalding has manufactured balls for other sports, including American football, soccer, volleyball, tennis, and golf. For a brief period in the 1980s, Spalding was also a designer of aftermarket automotive wheels. The company was founded in 1876 when Albert Spalding was a pitcher and manager of an early professional baseball team in Chicago, the Chicago White Stockings. The company standardized early baseballs and developed the modern baseball bat, a derivation of the cricket bat. In 1892, Spalding acquired rival sporting goods companies Wright & Ditson and A. J. Reach. In 1893, A.G. Spalding & Brothers purchased the Lamb Knitting Machine Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, and renamed it the Lamb Manufacturing Company. It used this purchase to consolidate its ice skate manufactory from Newark and its gymnasium goods manufactory from Philadelphia to the Chicopee plant. Lamb, primarily engaged in manufacturing knitting machines, rifles, and egg-beaters, had been fulfilling a contract since 1890 to produce the Credenda bicycle wheel for Spalding. Spalding chose Chicopee because it was the home of the Overman Wheel Company since it acted as their distributor in the Western USA, and Mr. Overman contracted with Lamb to make wheels for its lower-end products. The Spalding "League Ball" was adopted by the National League and used by the league since 1880, as well as by the American Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs for the seasons of 1892–1896. It was manufactured by A. G. Spalding & Bros., Chicago, New York & Philadelphia and sold for $1.50 in 1896. Production of bicycles continued at the Chicopee plant through the latter part of the 19th century, but in 1899 A.G. Ben Spalding sold its bicycle division to a massive trust called the American Bicycle Company which controlled 65% of the bicycle business in the US.