It took a long, long time for baseball to become the game we know and love – years and years full of trial and error and all manner of detours.

And that’s every bit as true of the equipment used on the field. Once upon a time, everything was open to negotiation – from gloves to bats to the baseballs themselves. While that negotiation eventually led to the game we watch today, it also produced a whole lot of very weird ideas. And so, in honor of the brave innovators who sought to #disrupt the big leagues in all sorts of ridiculous ways, we present seven of the very weirdest baseball-related patents ever.

“Ball bat” (Emile Kinst, 1890)

Unlike a lot of aspects of the game, the baseball bat has remained relatively unchanged since the 19th century. There have been tweaks over the years, of course – sporting goods giant and one-time big leaguer Al Spalding once devised a “mushroom bat,” whose heavy knob better balanced weight throughout the bat – but even then, the broader idea remained the same.

And then there was this bad boy, dreamt up by Chicago inventor Emile Kinst in 1890:

Why the giant curve? To put greater spin on batted balls, as Kinst explained: “The object of my invention is to provide a ball-bat which shall produce a rotary or spinning motion of the ball in its flight to a higher degree than is possible with any present known form of ball-bat, and thus to make it more difficult to catch the ball.”

Remember: Back in 1890, baseball gloves still weren’t universally accepted, so a ball spinning more quickly would be far more difficult for fielders to corral. Alas, Kinst’s idea never caught on — but some were put into production.

Read more about the strangest inventions in baseball history in our next publications.

Source link: http://www.mlb.com