Football History As Told By Sporting Goods Catalogs: Footballs

Among the sources that best document the state of football at any given time are sporting goods catalogs. After all, those catalogs tell us the products manufacturers, great and small, offered for sale to high schools, colleges, and, later, professional teams across the country. Short of products still in the testing process, catalogs provide a freeze-frame of top-of-the-line materials -often touted by famous coaches- and the lesser and far lesser goods available to different market segments. 

With that premise, this is the first of a series of posts, each of which will review a few items offered for sales at various times in football's history. In addition to images from period catalogs, I'll use each item to explain elements of the game at the time of each catalog's publication.

How Football Became Football describes how footballs evolved from inflated pig's bladders to leather-covered pig's bladders, and on to the rubber-bladdered ball we know today. The rugby ball used in the early years became shorter and thinner in stages over the years, but an underappreciated change was the introduction of valves in the 1920s. Before valves, footballs were inflated by stuffing bladders inside leather covers. The bladders had stems and were inflated using a pump or, as often, the mouth, as one does to blow up a balloon. Once inflated, they tied the stem with string, laced the ball, and then used it until it deflated again, and the process repeated.

Bladder stems were stuffed inside the ball after being tied off. Seamless bladders rested flush with the surface of the ball and could be reinflated without unlacing the ball. (Rawlings Fall 1928 Winter 1929)

Back then, footballs were unlaced and relaced all the time. It happened so often teams bought equipment to make the process, ahem, as seamless as possible. Now, I've lived my life without owning a bladder inserter, but I understand the need for a tool to insert a bladder into a football's leather cover. Once inserted, another device was handy for holding the ball in place, freeing both hands to lace that ball. And a bonus feature of the pictured device is that it worked equally well for volley balls.

The Bladder Inserter and Lacing Device paired to simplify the process of replacing the bladder and relacing the ball. (Rawlings Fall 1928 Winter 1929)