Sunday, August 18, 2002
Major-league baseballs hand-made in Costa Rica
Florida Today
TURRIALBA, Costa Rica - Barry Bonds has splashed them into McCovey Cove in San Francisco. Sammy Sosa has bounced them onto Waveland Avenue in Chicago.
They've been scuffed in Viera, cursed in Tampa and worshiped — once or twice — in Miami. They've been through bean-ball wars, strike-zone controversies, courtroom law suits and even tucked away in humidors.
Major-league baseballs have a unique history.
The 33,000-square foot Rawlings factory in this agriculturally based town of 30,000 is located in a country which has only two baseball stadiums but hundreds of soccer fields.
Each ball is assembled and hand-sewn by more than 300 futbol-loving Costa Ricans unaware of who Bonds, Sosa or Mark McGwire are. But some do realize their arduous $58-a-week jobs have an impact on a sport followed by millions across the globe.
“They haven't made a machine yet that can do it,” said Douglas Kralik, 51, the general manager and vice-president of Rawlings de Costa Rica, who grew up near the cornfields in southeast Iowa. “This is the only way it can be done — one at a time, by hand.”
The Rawlings factory is in its 15th year in Turrialba, after having pulled out of Haiti in 1990 because of “political instability.”
Turrialba lies 40 miles northeast of San Jose, the country's capital. It is an area of peaceful, scenic beauty, with narrow mountain roads and small villages such as Tres Equis and Chitaria leading into the city.
The descent into the valley is steep (like going into the bottom of a frying pan, the locals — or Ticos — say). Adding to the picturesque background are numerous car-repair shops and small cerveza (beer) establishments in the city.
Major-league baseballs had been assembled in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, since the early '70s, but the political climate forced Rawlings to “find some place, some country, where there would be no problems for years,” said Doug Kralik. “When the Rawlings engineers investigated this area, they noticed there were no other factories, so they knew they would have the sole labor force (today, Conair is the only other major manufacturer in town).”
In October of 1987, the factory opened with 12 employees in an old sugar-cane warehouse. Originally, it started with low-end products, like low-grade Little League baseballs. As the workers became more proficient, and the company began establishing its roots, Kralik's crew began producing major-league baseballs and Dixie League balls. By 1990, as Rawlings pulled out of Haiti, Kralik's company grew to 1,600 employees.
Today, all of the low-end balls are manufactured at the Rawlings plant in China. The Costa Rica factory, with its 450 employees, now is the only producer of major league baseballs.
The average age of the workers is between 23 and 24 (the minimum age is 18), and includes husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and sisters and brothers.
Each worker is required to work 48-hour, five-day weeks. If they sew a minimum of 150 balls in less time, they are allowed to go home early. The more advanced sewers are allowed to listen to music on headsets, but only if they show progress.
The factory opens each day at 6:30 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. Most work from about 7 a.m. to 5:40 p.m., each getting two 15-minute breaks plus an hour for lunch.
Workers earn an average of $58 a week (19,500 colones), but can earn up to $88 with incentives. The factory provides social security and health insurance, as well as a cafeteria. The Costa Rican government provides two weeks of vacation, one in January and one in July.
“They are so good at it,” said New York Yankees pitcher Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, the only major-leaguer to visit the factory, in 1998. “When you look at a ball, you can't tell where the stitching begins and ends.”
Bernal Solano Martinez, 30, of Noche Buena de Turrialba, some 30 minutes away, has never heard of Bonds or McGwire, and doesn't know who won last year's World Series.
But he likes sports, especially futbol, and is a fan of Heredia's city soccer team.
He has been sewing baseballs for 10 years but started out as a farmer, picking coffee.
“I like it masaqui (more here),” he said with a wide smile through an interpreter. “Picking coffee in the rain, or when the sun is hot ... no, this is much better.”
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Major-league baseballs hand-made in Costa Rica
