Is there any particular reason why certain sports balls are shaped the way they are?

Makes them easier to pass, shoot, hit, throw, catch, and carry.

@cletrans2col Easier how, specifically? I can see how the raised bumps on a basketball would make it easier to hold since a smooth ball would probably slide through the hands (cue dirty jokes) but a lot of the others see more mysterious to me.

This is a good source.

See here for basketball.

Thanks @bob_, I hadn’t even thought to ask about footballs. That article was very informative. And your second link confirmed my suspicions about basketballs.

On soccer balls, I have an idea. Kicking a perfectly spherical ball in a straight line would be more difficult, I think, as it would be hard to kick perfectly perpendicular to the surface. The “faceted” surface of the soccer balls creates many straight surfaces that are easy to kick perpendicularly.

I think the baseball threads have more to do with ease of production than any specific advantage to the shape, but I could be wrong.

The basketballs that I know of don’t have threads. Just a whole surface with impressions and grooves. I believe the grooves are made for the same reason as rifling a gun barrel makes projectiles more accurate.

Purely speculation on my part.

Modern day balls are designed specifically to enhance performance in their particular sport.
Early examples that illustrate the gulf in technology/design include an inflated pigs bladder being used in football/soccer.This is one reason why it’s impossible to compare sports stars from the past & present. The equipment used back in the day simply doesn’t make for an accurate barometer between the two…..i’m waffling now so i’ll stop.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies The line pattern I was referring to on basketballs is the black lines in this picture.

The technology and material available when the sport originated probably strongly influenced the way the sports balls were constructed.

For example, sewing together hexagons of animal skin reliably produced a nearly round ball of consistent size, shape and weight that behaved in a predictable fashion.

Some of the enduring features are more traditional, rather than functional as in many cases, variations in materials or stitching may have made small enough differences. For example American footballs are no longer made from pig skin.

It is a good thing that I read the whole question and noticed it was a General Section question. I was tempted to speculate on the impact (no pun intended) of specific sports and the configuration of the enclosed, pendulous spheroid portions of the male anatomy.

@Dr_Lawrence Definitely makes sense. And lmao.

I suddenly feel like trying to baseball bat some footballs…

BTW batting apples with yardsticks can cause both to explode pretty spectacularly.

The football is shaped that way because it helps keeping it spherical and gives it its aerodynamic properties. I think.

You cannot make a sphere out of one piece of flat material, however you stitch it together. To make it spherical, or as near to spherical as possible, it has to be made of smaller panels that fit together as a polyhedron.

i just watched / heard something about baseballs like they were originally stitched out of leather because that’s what they had to work with, but that the stitches and surface imperfections create imbalance in drag that effects the movement of the ball, makes curveballs, etc possible.

my guess is that a basketball has the raised bumps to provide increased friction to make it easier to handle.

Golf balls have puckered surfaces because the surface adds to the stability of the ball when it is hit and flies through the air. I expect other balls evolved the same way. It makes them easier to handle, depending on the sport.