Where are official Major League Baseball balls made? 80 percent of all other baseballs are made somewhere else
It’s time for the 2023 MLB Playoffs, so baseball fever reaches its peak as the remaining 12 teams battle it out in October and everyone dreams of World Series glory. As more and more casual fans just watch the postseason setup for the 2023 MLB Playoffs, some may wonder where the official MLB baseballs will come from.
Which company makes MLB baseballs? Based in Costa Rica since 1987, Rawlings Sporting Goods is a company that produces official major league baseballs. This choice is mainly due to the affordability of work in Costa Rica, where the local workforce takes pride in making these baseballs. Each ball requires 10 days of painstaking work, resulting in nearly two million balls being produced each year. The Rawlings Sporting Goods baseball factory in Turrialba, Costa Rica has about 300 employees. Before 1987, major league baseballs were produced in Haiti.
However, the political instability of the country moved the production of Rawlings Sporting Goods to Costa Rica. It’s worth noting that while official MLB baseballs are made in Costa Rica, Minor League baseballs and 80 percent of all other baseballs are made in Dushan County, China.
This means that unless you are a professional MLB player, you are probably using Chinese-made baseballs in your games. How will baseball be tested in the 2023 MLB playoffs? The “life” of baseballs is measured by a scientific measure called the coefficient of return. This metric compares the speed of the baseball after the hit with the speed before the hit. To test this, baseballs are shot from an air cannon at 85 feet per second down a white ash wall that resembles baseball bats.
For a baseball to meet survivability standards, it must hit at a velocity between 0.514 and 0.578 of its initial velocity.
