Did you know that major league baseballs were made in Perkasie, PA. for many years? An estimated 2,000 people in the Perkasie were trained to sew balls and stitched millions of baseballs and softballs. Here is the story of how this industry grew in Perkasie.

EARLY BEGINNINGS

Brothers Ed and Walt Hubbert learned to stitch covers on Major League baseballs while employed by the A.J. Reach Co. in Philadelphia, PA. After moving to Perkasie, PA around 1920 the Hubbert brothers made a stitching arrangement with Spalding to begin a small baseball business in Perkasie. All Hubbert family members and most relatives were soon stitching baseballs.

EARLY FACTORY LOCATIONS

Baseballs stitching first started in the kitchen at 142 North Main Street in South Perkasie. As neighbors joined in the house filled with stitchers. An addition was made to the home, but as the volume of work soon required a larger facility.

This building at 142 North Main Street in South Perkasie was the Hubbert home where baseball production began in Perkasie, PA.		The original baseball factory on Chestnut Street in Perkasie serves the community as the Senior Citizen Center in 2000.

A building at 815 Chestnut Street in Perkasie became the new baseball factory (which in the year 2000 is the Senior Citizens Center). The factory employed 50 stitchers that worked at the factory and about 300 home workers. Note that during WWII home work became quite popular.

This is how one would work in a baseball factory about 50 years ago at a workbench or table.		These pictures are taken at the factory building on Chestnut Street between 8th & 9th Streets.

Local factory workers looked forward to the annual visits from the Philadelphia Phillies who came to Perkasie to see how their baseballs were made.

SOFTBALLS

In 1950 the Hubbert/Spalding major league stitching contract expired. Dave Hubbert (son of Walt Hubbert) developed a much improved softball which could be used in the developing major U.S. sport. Dave Hubbert marketed his new softball through a small New York firm called Dudley Sports Co. For 18 years a home work force of 150 people stitched Dudley softballs in Perkasie. In 1968 Hubbert Ball Co. merged with Dudley Sports.

The Dudley softball went on to become the most popular softball in the United States. Sales reached up to 6 million balls a year and the total work force numbered 1000 employees for Dudley Sports located in the Pennridge area and in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti and Vidalia, Georgia. In 1990 Spalding purchased Dudley sports.

SOFTBALL FACTORY LOCATIONS IN THE PENNRIDGE AREA

After being acquired by Dudley Sports other factory buildings included the Old Snyder Cigar Factory on 4th Street, The Doughty Building across the street on 4th Street, the former Poultry Item Building in Sellersville, the 60,000 square foot Kollsman Building, and the old fire house in Dublin, PA. The last Dudley manufacturing plant in the Pennridge area was in the former Lutz Pants Factory in Sellersville, PA where all Dudley softball covers were cut. Area softball production stopped in 1993.

This 4th Street (Doughty) building was used for the manufacture of softballs under the Dudley name.		This plant in Dublin, PA. was also used to manufacture softballs under the Dudley name.