Spalding Sold Competitors' Gear??
- christinerachelle
- May 11
- 4 min read
Spalding seemed to be into manufacturing just about every type of sports equipment used at the turn of the twentieth century, including fencing equipment, cricket equipment, and both Intercollegiate and Association footballs (which looked more like basketballs). What you may notice when you dig in deeper to their catalogs will be the equipment with competitors' names on them that they also sold. For example, in the image above you can see a Wright & Ditson tennis ball on the same page as a Spalding ball. Below, you can see the Reach boxing glove. So, what gives?
According to a 1929 Time magazine article[1] about Spalding's stock splitting,
In 1892, A. G. Spalding & Bros, acquired Wright & Ditson and A. J. Reach, sporting goods companies, and put itself in an almost monopolistic position to profit from that trend in U. S. life which was to add the football stadium to collegiate architecture and golf to the businessman's routine.
Later, as you'll see on our Reach | Wright & Ditson | Victor page, Chris Hornung of AntiqueFootball.com tells us that after Al Reach died, Spalding consolidated the Reach and Wright & Ditson brands in 1928[2]. Hornung goes on much further with the interesting history of these companies being connected and what happened to their owners, but for us here, this introduces why some Reach and Wright & Ditson pieces of equipment were marketed within the Spalding catalogs for a short time.
By 1906, the Spalding catalog holds no Reach boxing equipment but still contains the Wright & Ditson tennis ball and several other odd brands, such as Peck & Snyder roller skates, Kern's rowing and reducing machines, and Laflin rowing machines. The Kern's rowing machine was an invention patented by Edward J. Kerns in 1900[3]. John M. Laflin patented his rowing machine prior to that, back in 1884[4]. Peck & Snyder, a company that started selling sporting goods in 1866, including baseballs, had their skates in a catalog of their own in 1873, which we just added thanks to International Archive. Spalding bought Peck & Snyder in 1894[5], two years after acquiring Reach and Wright & Ditson.
In the Spalding 1916 Winter catalog, while you'll see a great deal of equipment, Spalding seems to have put its own name on gear entirely by then. As of May 2026, as we fill in the gaps with their catalogs from 1906 to 1915, we'll get to see when they stopped marketing equipment by the name of the manufacturers they acquired. You will also get to see Reach catalogs going back to 1908. We have Wright & Ditson on here going back to 1884 already, and we will have more of theirs, going up to the 1930's, in the near future.
While maintaining these separate company names and product lines, Spalding later also acquired all of Rawlings' outstanding capital stock in 1955. Although antitrust legislation began in general in the United States in the 1890's and continued into the 1950's[6], it was not until 1955-1958 that the Federal Trade Commission stepped in to counter the Rawlings acquisition[7]. Both were among the top four manufacturers and distributors in 1954, and the complaint alleged:
...that by the acquisition of the capital stock of Rawlings, Spalding has eliminated one of the four largest competitors in the manufacturing and distribution of its athletic goods line and has acquired Rawlings's manufacturing facilities to make certain athletic goods which Spalding had theretofore been compelled to purchase from Rawlings or some other manufacturer and that the acquisition 'may have the effect of substantially lessening competition or tending to create a monopoly' in the manufacture, sale and distribution of athletic goods... [8]
Although they fought the FTC in 1961-62 in court, they were forced to keep the companies' manufacturing separate, and Spalding was ultimately forced to sell Rawlings.
A 1974 article in The New York Times[9] described the changes Spalding underwent even after that, being acquired by a holding company and then another manufacturer in the late sixties, while they were still producing Reach baseballs "used by both major leagues since their organization." While we may enjoy looking at old catalogs to watch the evolution of equipment, these historical volumes also highlight ways in which the sports manufacturers evolved, merged, grew, and split, all while manufacturing in several locations and working to make the best equipment for professionals, college students, high school students, and the parents tossing balls with their kids. Stick with us as we move forward documenting a hundred years of equipment evolution.
[1] "Spalding," Time, 18 Feb 1929, https://web.archive.org/web/20071128132316/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,737440,00.html#ixzz0Y2JnyrJ5
[2] "Maker Spotlight: The History of A.J. Reach & Co.," Chris Hornung, Antique Football: Researching America's Favorite Pastime, http://www.antiquefootball.com/a_j_reach_p6.htm
[3] "Check Out This Rowing Machine Patent from 1900," Rachel Freedman, RowSource, https://www.rowsource.com/history-culture/rowing-machine-patent-1900
[4] Friends of Rowing History, http://www.rowinghistory.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/298392.pdf
[5] "Peck & Snyder Reels, New York, NY," Antique Vintage Reels Lures & Tackle Information Website, https://reelsnlures.com/peck-snyder-reels-new-york-ny/, (c)2026
[6] "History of United States Antitrust Law," Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antitrust_law, accessed 11 May 2026
[7] United States Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit, https://www.scribd.com/document/320782141/A-G-Spalding-Bros-Inc-v-Federal-Trade-Commission-301-F-2d-585-3rd-Cir-1962
[8] Id.
[9] "From Spalding to Reach to Aaron," The New York Times, 4 April 1974, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/04/08/79621545.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
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