Beautiful Old Black Cloth Tape Ball

I've found just a couple of balls like this over the years, and learned that sometimes when the leather skin came off a baseball/softball, people would wrap the center in black cloth tape like this. To me it's like a more succinct and visceral version of a rag ball, wounded and wound, looking almost as if coated in tar. A beautiful and evocative thing.

3 5/8" d, beautiful condition.