It took a long, long time for baseball to become the
game we know and love -- years and years full of trial and error and all manner
of detours.
And that's every bit as true of the equipment used on
the field. Once upon a time, everything was open to negotiation -- from gloves
to bats to the baseballs themselves. While that negotiation eventually led to
the game we watch today, it also produced a whole lot of very weird ideas. And
so, in honor of the brave innovators who sought to #disrupt the big leagues in
all sorts of ridiculous ways, we present seven of the very weirdest
baseball-related patents ever.
"Ball
bat" (Emile Kinst, 1890)
Unlike a lot of aspects of the game, the baseball bat
has remained relatively unchanged since the 19th century. There have been
tweaks over the years, of course -- sporting goods giant and one-time big
leaguer Al Spalding once devised a "mushroom bat," whose heavy knob
better balanced weight throughout the bat -- but even then, the broader idea
remained the same.
And then there was this bad boy, dreamt up by Chicago
inventor Emile Kinst in 1890:
Why the giant curve? To put greater spin on batted
balls, as Kinst explained: "The object of my invention is to provide a
ball-bat which shall produce a rotary or spinning motion of the ball in its
flight to a higher degree than is possible with any present known form of
ball-bat, and thus to make it more difficult to catch the ball."
Remember: Back in 1890, baseball gloves still weren't
universally accepted, so a ball spinning more quickly would be far more
difficult for fielders to corral. Alas, Kinst's idea never caught on -- but
some were put into production.
Read more about the strangest inventions in baseball
history in our next publications.
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