A History of the Football: Ch. 3 Pt. 2

Right and Left-Handed Footballs

We seldom think of balls as right—or left-handed, but there was a period when NFL footballs were both right—and left-handed. The handedness issue arose because the stripes were located where quarterbacks rested their thumbs when gripping the ball.

Otto Graham complained about the thumb-on-paint problem by 1950, but no one did anything about it until the San Francisco 49ers' John Brodie took action. From 1956 through 1975, the NFL used unstriped tan balls for day games and tan balls with white stripes for night games. The story goes that Brodie disliked having his thumb rest on the stripes, so he scraped the paint off the 49ers' night game footballs in the spots where his thumb rested.

Brodie's actions led the NFL to change its paint pattern to accommodate right-handed quarterbacks. The new ball had stripes on both top panels and the sides of the bottom panels opposite where the quarterback's thumbs rested, so each bottom panel had one stripe. The NFL game-used ball from 1970 shown below has signature striping on one of the top panels and right-handed striping on the bottom panels.

The signature striped top panel of an NFL ball from 1970 with Pete Rozelle’s signature. (Heritage Auctions / HA.com)

One of the right-handed bottom panels on the same NFL ball. (Heritage Auctions / HA.com)