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Spalding is a sporting goods company founded by Albert Spalding
Albert Spalding

Albert Goodwill Spalding was a professional baseball player, manager and co-founder of Spalding sporting goods company.Having played baseball throughout his youth, Spalding first played competitively with the Rockford, Illinois Pioneers, a youth team, which he joined in 1865....
 in Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 in 1876 and now headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield is the largest city on the Connecticut River, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States.In the United States Census, 2000, the city population was 154,082....
. The company specialises in the production of ball
Ball

A ball is a round object with various uses. It is usually sphere but can be ovoid. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players....
s for many sports, being perhaps most well known for its basketball
Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five active players each try to score points against one another by propelling a basketball through a 10 feet  high hoop under organized rules....
s, but it also makes a range of products for baseball
Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
, soccer, softball
Softball

Softball is a Team sport sport popular especially in the United States. It is a direct descendant of baseball and the rules of both sports are substantially similar....
, volleyball
Volleyball

Volleyball is an Olympic Games team sport in which two teams of 6 active players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules....
, American football
American football

American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive team sport known for mixing strategy with physical play....
 and golf
Golf

Golf is a sport in which players using many types of Golf club including wood , iron , and putter , attempt to hit golf ball into each hole on a golf course in the lowest possible number of strokes....
.

Spalding became a division of the Russell Corporation
Russell Corporation

Russell Corporation, headquartered in Alexander City, Alabama, is a manufacturer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment founded by Benjanmin Russell in 1902....
 in 2003. However, that deal did not encompass Spalding's golf operations, which included the Top-Flite, Ben Hogan and Strata brand
Brand

A brand is a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or any other artifact or entity....
s, which were eventually bought out by Callaway later the same year.

Spalding is a leading producer of basketballs, and has been the official ball supplier to the NBA since 1983.






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Spalding is a sporting goods company founded by Albert Spalding
Albert Spalding

Albert Goodwill Spalding was a professional baseball player, manager and co-founder of Spalding sporting goods company.Having played baseball throughout his youth, Spalding first played competitively with the Rockford, Illinois Pioneers, a youth team, which he joined in 1865....
 in Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 in 1876 and now headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield is the largest city on the Connecticut River, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States.In the United States Census, 2000, the city population was 154,082....
. The company specialises in the production of ball
Ball

A ball is a round object with various uses. It is usually sphere but can be ovoid. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players....
s for many sports, being perhaps most well known for its basketball
Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five active players each try to score points against one another by propelling a basketball through a 10 feet  high hoop under organized rules....
s, but it also makes a range of products for baseball
Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
, soccer, softball
Softball

Softball is a Team sport sport popular especially in the United States. It is a direct descendant of baseball and the rules of both sports are substantially similar....
, volleyball
Volleyball

Volleyball is an Olympic Games team sport in which two teams of 6 active players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules....
, American football
American football

American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive team sport known for mixing strategy with physical play....
 and golf
Golf

Golf is a sport in which players using many types of Golf club including wood , iron , and putter , attempt to hit golf ball into each hole on a golf course in the lowest possible number of strokes....
.

Spalding became a division of the Russell Corporation
Russell Corporation

Russell Corporation, headquartered in Alexander City, Alabama, is a manufacturer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment founded by Benjanmin Russell in 1902....
 in 2003. However, that deal did not encompass Spalding's golf operations, which included the Top-Flite, Ben Hogan and Strata brand
Brand

A brand is a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or any other artifact or entity....
s, which were eventually bought out by Callaway later the same year.

Spalding is a leading producer of basketballs, and has been the official ball supplier to the NBA since 1983. The company also provides the official ball of the Arena Football League
Arena Football League

The Arena Football League was founded in 1987 in sports as an American football arena football. The AFL's attendance increased dramatically over its last few years, rising to an average of 12,415 people per game in 2007, and 12,957 per game in 2008, but the increases were accompanied by greatly increased expenses and debt, leading to the can...
, an indoor American football league.

The company was one of the first to use high profile athletes to endorse their products when tennis player Pancho Gonzales
Pancho Gonzales

Ricardo Alonso Gonz?lez or Richard Gonzalez, , who was generally known as Pancho Gonzales or, less often, as Pancho Gonzalez, was the World number one male tennis player rankings tennis player for an unequalled 8 years in the 1950s and early 1960s....
 was signed to an exclusive endorsement contract.

Spalding produced the well-known "Spaldeen
Spaldeen

A Spalding High-Bounce Ball, commonly called a spaldeen, is a small pink rubber ball, somewhat similar to a racquetball, supposedly made from the defective core of a tennis ball without the felt....
" high-bounce rubber ball, said to be a re-use of defective tennis ball cores, that was sold to city children from 1949.

Baseball

When Albert Spalding, one of the earliest star baseball
Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
 players, founded his sporting goods store in 1876, he would go on to bring several innovations to the young game. He popularized the use of the baseball glove
Baseball glove

A baseball glove or mitt is a large leather glove that baseball players on the defending team are allowed to wear to assist them in catching and fielding balls hit by a Batter , or thrown by a teammate....
 in 1877, and standardized the baseball itself soon afterward. At one point Spalding, who wrote the first official rule book for baseball, said that only Spalding balls could be used in the National League
National League

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest existent professional team sports league....
.

Basketball

Since developing the first basketball in 1894, Spalding has made many technological advancements in relation to basketballs. For example, their Infusion technology features a built in micro pump which allows the user to add air without the need for a pump or needle. This has since been developed to also allow air to be released. Spalding has also developed technology which is designed to prevent air from leaking out as it does in traditional basketballs.

In 2006, Spalding, along with the NBA, announced that they would release a new NBA Official Game Ball, with interlocking segments and made with a synthetic material instead of leather
Leather

Leather is a material created through the tanning of rawhides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses....
. However, many NBA players complained that the new composite ball became extremely slick after use, wouldn't bounce as high and bounced awkwardly off the rim and backboard. Players also complained that the new ball cut their fingers. As a result, from January 1 2007, the NBA reverted back to the old leather balls.

Image:Spalding basketball.jpg|A Spalding basketball
Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five active players each try to score points against one another by propelling a basketball through a 10 feet  high hoop under organized rules....
 Image:Soccerball.png|A Spalding soccerball
Football (ball)

A football is a ball used to play one of the various sports known as football.In the distant past, crude balls such as inflated pigs' bladders were used, but balls are now designed by teams of engineers to exacting specifications....

External links

  • - official site