Wilson Stuffs was a line of balls endorsed by Wilson Sporting Goods Company. These balls were made of a vinyl outer cover and looked and felt great. The balls were stuffed with a poly-filament material. My invention was to design balls which were soft and easy to catch and would not bounce away from very young children learning how to play with them.
I invented a bat that was spring-activated to propel these non-bouncing balls, as well as baseball gloves suitable for children with little hands. I originally called this line of pre-school athletic equipment “Junior Olympics.” Today there are millions of these balls made everywhere in the world.
What follows is part of a very long and interesting story.
When I invented this ball there were none made in the entire world.
I licensed this concept to a new company called Lewco, who in turn got a patent for these balls. After 2-3 years the product took off. It was a huge success. The Roy Rogers food chain used them in a TV promotion; they sold truckloads of Stuffs. The Stuffs put Lewco on the map. However, going into the third year another toy company “knocked off” the Stuffs. They offered a line of similar balls with a large assortment of sports equipment accessories.