After a lot of practice, here is the latest attempt, using a U shape, kind of like Pilou's.

Utilzed Flow to UnWrap/UnBend a 3d U shape. Flow will also Wrap/Bend the Plane shape back into the U.
Also used UnwrapCurve to get some lengths.

Used Blend with the edge of small cylinder and blue ring edge, to get "funnel" shape, from the planar stretched oval. Then used Flow to Bend it back
into the U shape, with the two smaller circles touching.

Next, I want to try to do a similar process with the Baseball curve.