Beano Balling

Beano Balling — Assemblage: Baseball, Grenade Pin

In September 1943 the Office of Strategic Services — the agency that would become the CIA — began developing a hand grenade built to the dimensions of a regulation baseball. Working with the Army Ordnance Department and Eastman Kodak, they introduced the T-13 in early 1944 and nicknamed it the BEANO, after the beanball. The logic was straightforward: every young American man already knew how to throw one. The military did not need to teach the motion. It only needed to change what was in the hand.

The BEANO was reportedly issued to troops staging for Normandy and pulled back after premature detonations. Production was suspended in March 1945 and the surviving stock was ordered destroyed. Almost none remain.

Beano Balling puts the object back where it started. A baseball, pinned. The pin is the only thing standing between a game and a detonation, and the release is identical either way — the grip, the wind-up, the follow-through. A pastime is what a country does regularly for pleasure. This piece asks what it means that ours was accurate enough to be issued as ordnance.

• Medium: Assemblage — baseball, grenade pin
• Dimensions: True to size
• Series: America's Favorite Pastime
• Year: 2016
• Artist: Damon DeWitt
• Availability: Original — 1 of 1