When you watch your first Major League Baseball game of the season today – or anytime this year – you should know that a Rhode Island company plays an outsize role in every facet of the national pastime.
That’s because the Brickle Group, a Woonsocket-based textile manufacturing company, produces the yarn inside every single baseball used in every game all season. That’s more than 270,000 baseballs a year.
“They’ve been making the ball the same way for 100 years,” said Max Brickle, the company’s president. He said his company has been working with Rawlings – which manufactures each baseball – for more than 15 years.
The Brickle Group was founded in 1937, and started as a rag recycling trader but has diversified over the years.
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The company now has 150 employees with facilities in Woonsocket, North Smithfield, and Maine, and it is in the process of acquiring a company in Pennsylvania.
The Brickle Group also produces military berets, blankets, and other extreme cold weather gear, Brickle said.
But you can’t play baseball without… baseballs.
Brickle wouldn’t give away any trade secrets about the making of each ball, but he did say that there are four different yarns inside each baseball. We also know that every baseball weighs a little more than five ounces.
So does constructing the most important part of every game mean Brickle has access to tickets any time he wants?
Nope.
But Brickle said that each year, special baseballs are made for All Star games and the World Series, and he likes to buy those collections.
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“I distribute them to employees,” Brickle said.
This story first appeared in Rhode Map, our free newsletter about Rhode Island that also contains information about local events, links to interesting stories, and more. If you’d like to receive it via email Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.