The Spalding company didn’t create the baseball as we know it. A boy, the son of a shoemaker, first thought up that legendary stitch-and-curve pattern.

Young Ellis Drake was doodling in the classroom when he happened upon it. And he sewed it up using leather from his father’s shop. As an adult, Ellis said, “Had I known its value, a fortune was mine. Still, I have the rich reflection that it has afforded pleasure to the world. The game would be a tame affair without that geometric form cover.”

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. Ellis didn’t get rich on his baseball design, but that couldn’t rob him of pleasure in his work. The joy in the doing is always a home run… in the high calling of our daily work.

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