Rawlings (company)
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| Subsidiary | |
| Founded | St. Louis, Missouri (1887) |
| Headquarters | Town and Country, Missouri, USA |
| Parent | Newell Brands |
| Website | www.rawlings.com |
Rawlings is a sports equipment manufacturing company based in the United States and founded in 1887. The parent company has been Newell Brands since 2016. Rawlings specializes in baseball equipment, but also manufactures softball, basketball, training equipment and American footballs. They have also recently started making fan gear such as chairs, tents, and bags with team logos on them.
Horween Leather Company has provided Rawlings with leather since 1929. In 2003, Horween was providing leather for 3,000 Rawlings baseball gloves annually, and half of professional baseball players were using baseball gloves made from Horween leather.
Rawlings was founded in Saint Louis in 1887, during the middle of the Long Depression, by George and Alfred Rawlings. The brothers set up a sporting goods store with its own catalog. They sold "Fishing Tackle, Guns, Baseball, Football, Golf, Polo, Tennis, Athletic and General Sporting Goods".
The company is credited with introducing football shoulder pads in 1902, and the first all-weather football.
It began providing the St Louis Cardinals with gloves in 1906.
In 1920, Bill Doak, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, suggested that a web be placed between the first finger and the thumb in order to create a pocket. This design soon became the standard for baseball gloves. Doak patented his design and sold it to Rawlings. His design became the precursor to modern gloves, and enabled Rawlings to become the preferred glove of professional players.
In 1955 Spalding bought Rawlings, and began using it to manufacture baseballs.
In 1957 the company introduced the Gold Glove award, which became the major award for baseball. It also and sponsors the Minor League Baseball (MiLB) "Rawlings Woman Executive of the Year" award.
13 years after acquiring it, an anti-trust investigation forced Spalding to sell Rawlings again, but as it did so Spalding set up a contract that would have Rawlings manufacture baseballs to sell with the Spalding logo.
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Wikipedia