What are the Steps to making a baseball?

Answer 1

From: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2000/05/23/ball000523.html The process begins with hard-rubber ball, or "pill," which from afar looks a bulb that could one day sprout an exotic flower. The pills, shipped here from a rubber plant in Alabama, have not changed as long as baseballs have been made for pro games, said plant manager Douglas Kralik. An old machine once used by Spalding before Rawlings became the majors' official supplier in 1977 checks each pill, which has the bounce of a well-used golf ball, to ensure it meets compliance. After a quick dip in a rubber-cement compressor, the pill is run through three machines that wrap it with coarse black, lighter grey and smooth white yarn. The ball, now known as a "centre," is tested every step of the way to ensure the approved amount of each kind of yarn is attached. The centres go to Hernandez and hundreds like him who spend their days frantically forcing a silver needle just slightly thicker than a pencil lead through the holes in a precut leather cover. After a machine turns an 2.4-metre-long sheet of white cowhide into a neat pile of rounded leather covers, workers choose two that are as identical as possible. The two partnered covers will eventually become each half of a Baseball's exterior. Some hides are smoother than others, said Evelyn Pereas, one of those in charge of the cover-sorting, so the trick is to match two smooth covers, or two rough ones. The covers then go to the damping room, where workers use rubber bands to press the covers together with moist towels in a very unscientific process that makes them more malleable. Next, after centre and cover are sewn, the ball is put through a circular compression machine to relax the stitches, which tend to stick up. After spending the night in an air-conditioned room, the balls are hand-cleaned and stamped with the autograph of commissioner Bud Selig. If inspectors see an exterior flaw, the balls are boxed for sale rather than sent to major league parks. The factory in this working-class town of 20,000 people produces about 36,000 pro balls a day. They go to fill the 1.2 million balls per month ordered by Major League Baseball. The cost per ball to Rawlings: about $4. And though all balls head through a quality-control centre in Missouri, the factory uses an 85 mph pitching machine and a wooden backstop to see how lively they are when pounded by the meatiest part of a slugger's bat. Baseball requires the balls to rebound at between 51 and 57 per cent of the speed they were travelling when they made contact with the wood. There have been some balls with quite a bit more pep, said Diane Kralik, who heads the factory's quality-control division, but they are never allowed to leave the testing room.