Alas, my old brain had forgotten a lot of this about A. G. and his companies. It's hard to wrap your arms around the man and his enterprises.
I had forgotten about Victor company and Brett may be right about them making the bats. Spalding Bros. bought the Wright and Ditson Co, I think primarily for its golf and tennis expertise (and using wood in these specialties and combined it with the new company, Victor, Wright and Ditson with Victor supplying the bats-that's conjecture).
A. G. began his sporting goods venture with a store in Chicago that expanded to other stores across the country while operating the Chicago White Sox.
Now, what I've not learned from googling is when he moved his headquarters back east. And where were the Spalding, Reach gloves made
and did that plant close when Spalding turned to Rawlings in the early to mid 1950s to make gloves.
Yep, I've googled. Surely there's a book on Spalding somewhere. You
guys would be interested in this link. In it it mentions that Spalding came up with the first padded glove and sort of weaved a tale of him producing that (the anecdotal story I remember was the he wore a black glove to distinguish that it was a glove and that his was the first to be worn in the field not that it was padded). The first padded glove I recall was that of Arthur Irwin's at Draper & Maynard in the 1880s when his hand was injured. So apparently Goodwill moved his headquarters from Chicago back East in the New York, Mass. areas. Brett's right likely on the Wright and Ditson being in Boston and later to Springfield Mass when Victor was
added to the Spalding family.
So, still some questions but this has become a good exercise.
http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Sc-S ... dwill.html