Great Moments in History: The Improved Ball-Bat

April 22, 1890: Emile Kinst (pictured below) files for patent on certain new and useful Improvements in Ball-Bats. The profundity of this breakthrough, which changed the sport forever, is best appreciated by reading Kinst’s own words.

The front or rear view of this bat shown in a drawing would show nothing which differed in outline from an ordinary ball-bat…I mean most particularly those bats known as “base-ball bats.” 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, or, if caught, to hold it, and thus further to modify the conditions of the game…With these said results, owing to the peculiar form of my bat, the game becomes more difficult to play, and therefore much more interesting and exciting, because the innings will not be so easily attained, and consequently the time of the game will also be shortened, and on account of the said spinning motion given to the ball by my bat it will also be sent farther across the field.

(Italics mine)

Emile Kinst, father of modern baseball