Spalding quickly grew, making baseball gloves and uniforms and the first modern baseball bat. In 1880, Spalding’s League Ball became the official baseball of the National League (and later of the American League), a position it held until 1976. 

It’s impossible to overstate Albert Spalding’s vision and ambition. His company quickly expanded into making equipment for every sport imaginable. In 1892 Spalding went into acquisition mode, buying up two key competitors: the A.J. Reach and the Wright and Ditson sporting goods companies. The latter is notable as the Wright of Wright and Ditson is one George Wright, a Hall of Fame shortstop for the Boston Red Stockings and a major mover and shaker of turn-of-the-century golf.

Wright was the driving force behind Boston’s Franklin Park golf course, the first municipal course in the U.S. Boston’s other muni is named after Wright, who donated the land for the Donald Ross design.

GROWING THE GAME

In 1893, Spalding bought the Lamb Knitting Machine Company in Chicopee, Mass which made, obviously, knitting machines and, less obviously, eggbeaters, bicycle wheels, and rifles.

By this time, Spalding was making everything from barbells, dumbells, punching bags, and rowing machines to fencing blades, whistles, shot puts, javelins, and golf clubs. Spalding, along with Wright and Ditson, was importing golf clubs from Scotland. By the following year, Spalding began making clubs in the U.S. In 1895, Spalding started manufacturing golf balls.

As a former pro athlete, Spalding saw the value of using professionals to help promote both the game and his products. In 1900, Spalding released the Vardon Flyer, the golf ball used by Harry Vardon. Spalding sponsored Vardon’s 1900 tour of America, culminating in Vardon winning the U.S. Open in Chicago. During their time together, Vardon and Spalding agreed the best way to grow the game in the U.S. – and grow the market for Spalding golf products – was to build more golf courses.

Spalding decided it would be good business to provide golf course design services free of charge to anyone with the money and inclination to build one. Brilliant idea? Yes. Original? No. Spalding’s buddy Wright had been doing the same thing since 1892.

Spalding hired Tom Bendelow as his designer, and Bendelow went on to develop many courses still in use today. In 1906 Bendelow designed the expansion of Atlanta’s East Lake Club, the eventual home club of one Robert Tyre Jones, Jr.

MORE SPALDING GOLF INNOVATIONS

We’ll spare you the decade-by-decade rundown of Spalding innovations (and there are many). Instead, we’ll hit the highlights.

In the early days, golf clubs were hand-forged using a hammer and anvil. It was a time-consuming, costly and inconsistent process. By the early 1920s, Spalding began using a mechanical hammer to drop-forge heads in an assembly line, making the process faster, more consistent, and considerably less expensive.

Spalding also produced the first U.S.-made golf shoes, the first clubs to use numbers instead of names, and the first completely matching set of woods and irons (the Kro-Flite).

Albert Spalding died in 1915, but his company continued to flourish. And in 1930, it hit the jackpot.

ENTER BOBBY JONES

The Roaring 20s gave us Babe Ruth, Knute Rockne, Jack Dempsey, and Red Grange. The biggest of them all, however, may well have been the aforementioned Bobby Jones.

Jones famously retired from golf after winning the 1930 version of the Grand Slam. Shortly thereafter, Spalding signed him as spokesperson, vice president and director of research. Jones immediately put his Georgia Tech engineering degree to good use.

Among Jones’ innovations: the first matched set of steel-shafted irons, the first set of irons with the sweet spot in the center of each club (denoted by a circle of dots on the clubface), and an iron set where the scoring irons were one length, the mid irons were one length, and the long irons were one length. Not quite Bryson-like, but innovative for the day.

From 1932 until 1973 – two years after Jones’ death – Spalding sold over 15 different models and two million sets of Bobby Jones clubs.

Spalding’s contributions to modern golf are considerable. The Kro-Flite in 1930 was golf’s first liquid center golf ball, while the Spalding DOT was a mid-century icon. Dynamiter wedges featured deep grooves, often in unusual shapes, that ultimately prompted the USGA to outlaw them.

The 1953 Top-Flite Synchro-Dyned irons were particularly innovative, featuring a matched shaft flex and head weight for each iron in the set. And Spalding predated Mizuno by at least 60 years with a copper undercoating for its forged blades in the mid-50s.

In the 1960s, Spalding introduced the Spalding Executive line of clubs and balls and the Top-Flite Elite Professional irons with the Bird on Ball logo. These were said to be Moe Norman’s favorite clubs and are rated by the MyGolfSpy Forum’s resident vintage club expert Big Stu as the third greatest pure forged blade of all time.

Like its sporting goods brother-in-arms MacGregor, Spalding ownership changed hands in 1958. The Pyramid Rubber Company, a maker of baby bottles, strollers, and other infant products, bought a controlling interest. In 1962, Pyramid merged with Dunhill International and the AP Parts Corporation. By 1970, the ownership group morphed into the Questor Corporation, and Pyramid Rubber was rechristened Evenflo.