For decades, football players have been tossing around the ol’ “pigskin” (the ball is actually made of cow’s skin today). Baseball players have been perfecting their “horsehide” (cowhide) curve ball for even longer. But the time has come for sports like soccer, baseball and cricket to field a new idea—nonleather sporting equipment.

The use of leather balls, pads, gloves, athletic shoes and other gear supports the cruelty of factory farming and the misery of the slaughterhouse. For example, it takes the leather of 3.8 steers to make the 72 footballs used in every National Football League (NFL) SuperBowl; it takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs! Baseball actually has a requirement for the use of leather to make balls written into its rules (Rule 1.09: “The ball shall be a sphere formed of yarn wound around a small core of cork, rubber or similar material, covered with two strips of white horsehide or cowhide, tightly stitched together”).

The animals who end up as baseballs and soccer cleats suffer confinement, crowding, branding, unanesthetized castration, tail-docking, dehorning and cruel treatment during transportation and slaughter. Most leather comes from the skins of cattle and calves, but it can also be made from horses, sheep, lambs, goats and pigs who are slaughtered for their flesh, as well as from dogs and cats killed in Asia for their skins and meat.

Is she in your soccer ball?

Much leather comes from India, where the thriving leather trade is perhaps the cruelest in the world. A PETA investigation into this trade revealed that many of the animals used for Indian leather are so exhausted, ill or injured by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse that they have to be dragged inside. Because slaughtering cows is illegal in most Indian states, cattle are marched over hot, dusty roads for up to 100 miles to secret locations where they can be loaded onto trucks bound for the slaughterhouse. Deprived of water during the march, the animals become sick and lame. Hot chili peppers and tobacco are rubbed into their eyes, and their tails are painfully twisted and broken in order to make them stand up after they collapse from exhaustion. In the trucks, they accidentally gouge each other with their long horns and fall on top of one another as the trucks careen over potholes in the dirt roads.

Synthetic is Superior! U.K. soccerball manufacturer Mitre, which supplies balls to soccer clubs worldwide, switched to synthetic balls eight years ago, when it discovered that synthetics perform better. Mitre found that nonleather soccerballs are more flexible, last longer and repel water better than leather.

Because leather products are rarely labeled, it is difficult to determine where a leather item came from or what animal it was made from. When you buy leather balls or other game gear, you may be purchasing leather from India or from Asian dog and cat tanneries, since products from these countries are exported all over the world.

During the course of our investigation, PETA discovered that many cricket balls are made from Indian leather. We contacted Sanspareils Greenlands, the largest manufacturer of cricket balls in India and the only company licensed to provide balls to Indian International Cricket and the Board of Control for Cricket, and asked them to manufacture a synthetic cricket ball. The company has agreed and hopes to introduce a synthetic ball very soon. This will be the first and only synthetic cricket ball available, coming from the largest cricket-playing nation in the world. It has the potential to spare the lives and end the suffering of thousands of Indian cattle.

Sporting goods giants Wilson (supplier of footballs to the NFL), Rawlings (licensed supplier of baseballs for major league baseball) and Nike have also agreed to explore leather alternatives. PETA has also approached the commissioner of baseball and asked that the rule requiring balls to be made of animal skins be rescinded. PETA's baseball tteam uses vegan gloves.

During the past several years, the use of synthetic materials in sporting equipment has become more popular, since the high-tech fabrics are more durable, lighter in weight and in many cases, repel water during outdoor sports.

Alternatives to leather athletic gear are widely available in synthetic materials, with the exception of cricket balls. Nike already has one of the largest selections of synthetic shoes on the market.

•Contact your local sports leagues, schools, colleges and professional teams and ask them to use only nonleather equipment. If you belong to a sporting league, convince your club to test nonleather balls and let us know what they think! •Purchase only nonleather sports equipment from stores and ask them not to stock leather items. Contact PETA for our free list of nonleather sporting equipment suppliers. •Write to the commissioner of baseball and ask him to change the rules to allow nonleather balls to be used: Allan H. Selig, Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, 2455 Park Ave., 31st Fl., New York, NY 10167; tel. 212-931-7800. •Write to the NFL and ask that it switch to synthetic balls: Paul Tagliabue, President, National Football League, 280 Park Ave., New York, NY 10017; tel. 212-450-2000. •Contact the following sporting-goods companies and encourage them to develop synthetic balls: Howard Keene, Acting President, Rawlings Sporting Goods, P.O. Box 22000, St. Louis, MO 63126; tel. 314-349-3500 James Baugh, President, Wilson Sporting Goods Co., 8700 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Chicago, IL 60631; tel. 773-714-6400