TULLAHOMA, Tenn. (WTVF) — As baseball fans across the country celebrated MLB Opening Day and the return of the sport's regular season, Tennessee Tanning Company employees were hard at work, helping some of the key pieces of the game.
Since the early 1970s, the Tullahoma plant has been providing the leather used to make the MLB's baseballs. It's leather products also make up the lacing on many big-leaguers gloves.
"So every game you've seen since the early 1970s, those balls, the leather originated from this tannery," Plant Manager Michael York said. "All the statistics that Major League Baseball guards so closely, we have a hand in making sure they’re as consistent as possible."
The tannery has been making baseball products in Tullahoma since the 1960s, according to York. In the 1980s, the plant was bought by sports equipment company Rawlings.
Inside the plant, cow hides are tanned, dried and then re-dried before they are shipped off thousands of miles away.
"This goes to Costa Rica to our sewing facility, where the balls are actually sewed," York explained, while pointing out some of the finished leather. He said the product being shipped to Costa Rica today would likely get into the hands of Major League teams in the form of a baseball by this summer.
"Good chance you'll see that as balls with the teams around the All-Star Break," he said. "Every game is special, because you know [the ball] came through our employees hands here and they made that."
