{"id":5107,"date":"2013-11-23T12:31:25","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T19:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=5107"},"modified":"2013-11-24T12:35:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T19:35:30","slug":"eli-mannings-special-balls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2013\/11\/23\/eli-mannings-special-balls\/","title":{"rendered":"Eli Manning’s Special Balls"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Eli Manning\u2019s Footballs Are Months in Making<\/h1>\n
By\u00a0BILL PENNINGTON<\/a><\/h6>\n

\"\"Chang W. Lee\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. \u2014 When\u00a0Eli Manning<\/a>\u00a0drops back to throw his first pass Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, the football in his hands will be as familiar as an old friend.<\/p>\n

That is because the ball has been scoured, scrubbed, soaked and seasoned, a breaking-in process that takes months and ensures that every ball used by the Giants in a game will meet Manning\u2019s exact preferences. The leather will have been softened, the grip enhanced and the overall feel painstakingly assessed.<\/p>\n

There are no new balls thrown around in a\u00a0N.F.L.<\/a>\u00a0game. A new ball, despised for its sheen and waxy gloss, is as popular as a late hit.<\/p>\n

For every N.F.L. game, each team has 12 to 20 balls that it has meticulously groomed and prepared according to the needs of its starting quarterback. The balls, brushed and primed using various obvious and semisecret techniques, bear the team logo and are switched out from sideline to sideline depending on which team is on offense.<\/p>\n

That means that from series to series, the ball in play can feel wholly different, but each team\u2019s quarterback always has a ball prepped by his equipment staff the way he likes it.<\/p>\n

Nothing is left to chance. The Giants, for example, have a special set of a dozen pregame practice balls so Manning can warm up with footballs that will feel exactly the same as the game balls, which are inspected and approved by the game officials before play starts.<\/p>\n

In all, there are always about 36 specially marked Eli Manning balls sequestered and protected in four large ball bags. If a coach looking for a ball at practice should unwittingly approach one of the bags, the team\u2019s equipment director, Joe Skiba, will pounce: \u201cGet away, those are Eli\u2019s game balls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skiba added: \u201cNo one is allowed to touch those balls. They\u2019re precious jewels. Too much work has gone into them.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ click to read full article at NYTimes.com<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times Eli Manning\u2019s Footballs Are Months in Making By\u00a0BILL PENNINGTON Chang W. Lee\/The New York Times EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. \u2014 When\u00a0Eli Manning\u00a0drops back to throw his first pass Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, the football in his hands will be as familiar as an old friend. That is because the ball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}