Your first ballglove

[Ltlabner]

What brand was your first ballglove?

When did you get it?

Who gave it to you?

Any special story behind it?


My first was a McGreggor but I don't know the model. I don't remember how I got it but I think my folks got it at a garage sale or something. It was in so-so shape and worked for youth league ball.

I think I still have it out in the gargage.

[HumnHilghtFreel]

Great thread.

I started playing when I was 5 in a coach-pitch league... I skipped Tee-Ball, I guess just because I was so good(lol). My mom took me to the store and let me pick out my own glove and being a normal 5 year old, as soon as I saw the green and yellow Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles glove, I knew that was the one for me.

I wish I still had it, but it fell apart and I got a real glove a few years later.

[killuminati35]

My glove was an old Rawlings that my older brother had used for years. It was so broken in and the leather was worn, but that glove got a LOT of use out of it. It held up better than the $175 firstbaseman mitt I got in high school.

[Always Red]

...is nailed to the wall in my basement.

A Paul Blair model Wilson; given to me from my dad, who passed away last fall.

I've had 3 or 4 gloves since that little mitt; but that's the only one I have saved:beerme:

[RollyInRaleigh]

A Regent from the Hardware Store that my dad worked at. My first "real" ballglove was a Rawlings "basket web" model that I truly loved. I believe I slept with that glove for a solid year. Bought it with the money I earned mowing my grandmother's yard for a summer. I love baseball gloves. Just bought my son a really nice Rawings glove. (Heart of the Hide) We are in the "break-in" process right now. Going to take a while. Love the way a new ball glove smells.

[Yachtzee]

My first glove was a Louisville Slugger Graig Nettles signature model. I used that one through most of my youth, up until high school when the web fell apart. Then I got a Rawlings Dale Murphy model, which I still have today. I thing Rawlings still uses the same design for the Ken Griffey, Jr. signature model today.

[oneupper]

A Bobby Knoop Rawlings glove. Man, I LOVED that Glove.
Had like a Star Pocket instead of the usual webbing.

It was stolen unfortunately and I traded "up" to a Roberto Clemente.

I still miss that Bobby Knoop glove. If I found it on eBay, I'd buy it.

(Post 3000 whoo-hoo)

Googled Bobby Knoop and here is the glove

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110003070239&category=50126#ebayphotohosting

[redsmetz]

My first ball glove was a Warren Spahn authograph model from Hutch. Got it in grade school and used it until I got married in 1981, just a little dinky thing, the glove was. I got it about 1965 and only played one year of organized ball because I had asthma and they didn't have inhalers back then. I was the proverbial peewee right fielder. That Peter Paul & Mary song was written for me. I only got on base once because the catcher dropped the third strike. I love that rule!

I finally got a new Mizuno glove from my in-laws which I used until my "retirement" from softball about five or six years ago. I used it since then tossing with my son in the front yard.

One year Warren Spahn came to town for an old timers game. I stood by the dugout for a long while trying to get his autograph, but alas, it didn't happen. I loved that leg kick!

I think this is an earlier model.

http://www.vintagesportsshoppe.com/was91.jpg

[redsmetz]

...is nailed to the wall in my basement.

A Paul Blair model Wilson; given to me from my dad, who passed away last fall.

I've had 3 or 4 gloves since that little mitt; but that's the only one I have saved:beerme:

When my wife moved here and we started dating, she had a Paul Blair autograph model. I think he played here her first year here. Then our kids went to school with a with that name, so she had his glove.

[Reds Freak]

You will laugh at this one...My first glove I believe was a Rawlings but I know it was a none other than Royce Clayton signature model. I guess that's about right because I turned out to be a light hitting, slick fielding infielder.

[BuckWoody]

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember whose signature was on my first glove, if any. I do believe it was a Rawlings. What I do remember quite clearly was that it was red. Once I saw that they had a glove made out of red leather, there was no other choice to be made.

My second glove was a Wilson A2000 XL. I remember that one distinctly because it's still downstairs in my bag, although it has been retired for a few years.

[smith288]

I got some cheapo fake leather job that I used in tee ball. I still have that thing but its hard as a rock and im afraid to touch it because its so brittle.

My favorite glove is a brand new professionally tailored glove Jalal Leach gave me when I worked for the Clippers back in '95 i think. Its a sweet glove.

[MartyFan]

My first glove was a MacGregor and I can't remember who the signature on it was from either...I gave it to one of my friends kids almost 20 yeaers ago.

I was 6 years old and from the time I was 6 to the time I was 17 when I had to stop playing baseball I only played SS.

The glove was given to me by my father and mother and I remember going with them to buy it at Service Merchandise on West Broad Street in Columbus, OH.

We had to do it after my dad got home from work and I can remember laboring over chooseing between the MacGregor or a Louisville Slugger glove...which I really didn't want because THEY MAKE BATS....WOW!

[OesterPoster]

My first glove, and the one I still use is the Rawlings Basket Web model mentioned above. I love the thing and wouldn't part with it for anything else. I'm a right-hander, but oddly the glove is an autograph model of lefty Steve Carlton.

I have no idea where my dad bought it, but I remember picking it out amongst all the other gloves. It felt the best and had a spot for your index finger to go outside of the normal finger hole. I probably got it sometime in the early '80s.

[dabvu2498]

Only glove I specifically remember was an RBG36 Dale Murphy signature model. Used it all the way through high school. Got to college and caught so much hell for the shape it was in that I got a new one. I still have it (the old one) and use it whenever I play softball.

[BoydsOfSummer]

First glove was purchased at Sears and was a Ted Williams/Sears brand. I still have it although I never used it much. I did use a Rawlings Fastback Basket-Weave that I dearly loved. Somebody cherished it more than I did and stole it.

I got recruited to play softball for one of the churches my dad pastored and the coach is as big a Reds freak as I am. He had been to Reds Baseball Heaven when Big Ted was still alive and participating. He and Ted had hit it off really well and when Jim left,Ted gave him his 1b glove after autographiong it.

Jim the coach and I really hit it off due to both being obsessive baseball nuts and he'd let me use it during games.

About 2 years ago my folks got a call from Jim's wife informing them that Jim had died. She wanted my addy for some reason,Mom said.

About a week later I recieved an autographed by Ted KLuzewski and game-used by Ted Kluzewski 1b mitt in the mail.

That is my favorite glove,ever.

[butlerbulldogs]

Buddy Bell Wilson model for this lefthander

[Blimpie]

Talk about a trip down old amnesia lane....

When I first started playing T-Ball in the mid 1970s, I played with my father's glove he had when he was a kid. This thing was held together with shoelaces and was SOOO worn out that the model was completely unrecognizable. I do know that it was made during the late 1940s.

I got so much flack from my teammates that I started whining to my folks about wanting a new glove of my own. My Dad made me a promise: If I hit a homerun, he would buy me a new glove.

"A home run?" This was T-Ball and I weighed about 50 lbs soaking wet. I knew I had little chance, but I figured I could keep trying hard and--with a little more whining--my efforts would pay off.

With about 3-4 games left in the season, I hit my best ball of the entire season. It was hit so hard that it crashed off the fence and got away from the left fielder. The only problem was that I was standing on second base already looking for my mom in the stands for some affirmation.

All of the sudden, I hear the third base coach SCREAMING his head off at me. "Come on, come on!!!" I look out in left field and the kid STILL has not gotten to the ball I hit. So, I bust it down to third base right about the same time the ball comes back in the infield. A Stinking Triple. I was absolutely crestfallen. If I hadn't been mugging for mom, then I would have easily had a home run without so much as a slide at the plate.

Even though we won the game, I couldn't stop thinking about what might have been my last chance to hit a home run that summer. I asked my mom if she thought a triple would be good enough to earn me a new glove. Her only response was, "We'll have to see what your Father thinks..."

When I got home, my Dad said he heard that I played a great game. While he new what I was about to ask him, he reiterated to me that a triple was not the same thing as a home run. "Maybe next year.." he said.

I went to bed early that night I was so sick with disappointment. When I got home from school the next day, on my bed lay a brand new baseball glove from my Father. It was the same Rawlings Reggie Jackson model that I had spotted months earlier at the local Gold Circle.

I think that might have been the longest hug I had ever given to my Father. That is a moment that I am reminded of every time I watch my son take the ball field.