Crocheting the Baseball Hat

As I alluded to in my last post, I'm a big Mets fan. This has prompted a two crafting projects. The first I started in April, after the discovery that night games in April are cold. Shocking, I know. Thus, one day when I was looking for a way to keep my fingers busy, I bought some nice cotton yarn in blue and orange, and did my first knitting in several years. The result was a scarf:



I got to wear this scarf to my most recent game, which was on a night that had been forecast to be rather chilly in late August. It turned out to be unnecessary for warmth, but I got to discover that it is long enough, rather warm, and very cozy - I love the way it feels. Now, just don't ask how many hours of labor it was, cause the answer is way too many - there's a reason I don't try to knit for fun and profit! I'd never make it to the profit part!

The other idea I had for a baseball-related craft item was a hat: specifically, a skull cap done in white with red stitching to emulate a baseball. I started the project last night, and it's going pretty well. It has raised a couple issues, though:
1. If I want to sell this pattern, how can I easily modify the pattern for different sized heads without having to remake the whole damn pattern and guess (since the only size head I actually have a model for is my own)?
2. How, exactly, are the stitches done on a baseball??
I'm hoping the internet will yield the answer to the first question. The second question would be easily solved if I only owned a baseball - but I don't. Thus, the main purpose of this post is to give me a place to gather a few images of baseballs that I've found, in the hopes that my brain will process these and figure out how to stitch the red on my hat! :)

Detail of the way the stitches interlock:


Angle one:


Angle two (this one is actually a golf ball, I think!):


Angle three:


Angle four:


Angle five:


Then I had a bright idea! Maybe I should just look for a pattern for making a baseball, which would confirm if my suspicion of how they are stitched together were correct. And voila, I have found a wikihow article on how to sew a cloth baseball, which confirms that my current hypothesis of how a baseball was made is correct.

Okay! So I think I know how to do this. Now, if only I was going to get to this step tonight - but sadly, I suspect the best I'll manage is to finish the actual skull cap part. :)

Pictures to come...