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Old 06-26-2009, 03:35 PM
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Jerry
Jer.ry Fic.chi
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
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Peach definitely has no association with Reach. Al Reach was a ballplayer turned sporting goods manufacturer who sold his Philadelphia company to Spalding, the more famous ballplayer turned equipment titan.

We know that Peach produced ball gloves from roughly 1911-16 in Gloversville, NY, but very little else is available to us. The name of the town speaks for itself. Immigrants settled in the area and applied their glove-making skills taken from Europe. Baseball gloves were a natural offshoot for the glove industry, so a few manufacturers popped up in the area... most notably Kennedy-Wells, better known as Ken-Wel.

The Peach advertising poster is absolutely magnificent! I seriously doubt that any of the players depicted were compensated for appearing on it. Interestingly, though players of the era are seen in advertisements for sporting equipment and in manufacturers' catalogs, actual player endorsements on gloves and mitts were sporadic in the teens. This practice didn't truly take off until the the 20's.
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