Did You Know There Was Once a “Left-handed Football”?

Recently proofreader Jerry Wolper saw a very interesting old story that included a link to a tweet from a site called “Quirky Research,” which included the text, “In the early 1970s, the NFL had an official left-handed night football for use by southpaw quarterbacks.”

The attached photo showed a undated newspaper column with the heading “Stabler And Left-handed Pigskin.” Unfortunately I do not know the provenance of the article nor the date, but it reads like it’s from around 1977 or 1978. [Update: It’s from the Sacramento Bee of December 29, 1978.]

Jerry had actually sent that to Paul, who forwarded it to me, calling it “Pure gold.” Here’s the text of the article (click to enlarge):

The story revolves around then-Raider Ken “The Snake” Stabler, who was a left-handed quarterback in a time when few southpaws played in the NFL. The column goes on to state that Stabler, more than any other QB, was “responsible for the invention of the left-handed football.” It’s a bit of hyperbole, of course, as the writer notes that there were both right- and left-handed footballs, though their origins go back further than Stabler.

For most readers who weren’t born during the Baby Boom, this is probably news. A left-handed football, you say? How exactly is that possible?

As the article notes, in the early days of night football — if you’ll pardon the turn of phrase — poor lighting conditions made for poor play, and the ball was particularly difficult to see. To remedy this problem, the “night ball” was invented. Two different methods for making the ball more visible were the painting of white stripes on the brown football, or the painting of the full leather itself with either white or yellow paint.

But this presented a new problem: an unpainted, pebbled football has a certain texture and feel, aiding in a quarterback’s grip. But by painting stripes of the ball, the leather in those spots became slick, and as a result, throws became much less accurate. The article goes on to explain how this occurs, and then turns its attention to one of the innovators who would “solve” the problem of the slippery pigskin.

It notes 49ers QB John Brodie discovered that by scraping part of the white stripe off of both sides of one of the football’s panels, he would be able to cleanly grip the football, but the ball itself would still have enough of the painted stripes to be visible in (still underlit) night games. But Brodie, like most QBs, was a righty. While his “invention” would be of assistance to most quarterbacks, it would be of no use to those who threw lefty.

So when Ken Stabler became the starter for the Raiders, and was apparently not performing up to his daytime standards during night games, Raiders owner Al Davis decided to remedy the problem by ordering night footballs designed specifically for left-handers. These would be balls with the painted stripes missing in the areas where a lefty’s thumb would be affected by the stripes’ positioning.

The article goes on to note these balls would be labeled with the letter “L” and the “left-handed football” was born.

The article concludes by noting further refinements to the night ball, and then noted its rather rapid demise was due not to the demise of the left-handed quarterback, but rather improved stadium lighting, which would obviate the need for a striped football. Striped footballs, while they were still produced, were no longer necessary. Night games were thereafter played with a stripeless ball, the same one that was used for day games.

So — that’s the story of the “left-handed football.” It wasn’t really a left-handed football in the literal sense, but merely one striped specifically to allow lefties a better grip of the ball. And of course, the same holds true for the “right-handed football,” which was designed with the striping in a position to aid with right handed throwing. And since most QBs were righty, that pattern became the de facto ball of the night game. It wasn’t until Al Davis stepped in that balls specifically striped for lefties — or rather Ken Stabler — became de rigueur. The final act of marking them with the letter “L” created the “left-handed football.”

So yes, there was once a “left-handed football,” and now you know how it came to be!

[Special thanks to Paul for bringing this to my attention. — PH]