Catchers Glove | Baseball Mitts Deals & Steals Today

Catchers glove steals on the market now!

You just have to be really excited about a catchers glove these days. I mean, these mitts haven’t really changed all that much over the years, but their ability to actually hold on to a 98 mph fastball is an amazing feat. I can’t help but smile at some of these young guys when they first put on their mitt. Alien though it may be, the oversized extension at the end of their hand, even at the youngest team level, must feel really strange. I know it did for me and I played for several years at the position. I even slept with my catchers glove, first under my pillow for about a month, then gradually making the decision to put it under the bed. Still close to me and I’d reach under every once in a while to touch it.

The baseball catchers position is unique and takes a unique young boy who is attracted to the job. Strange in stature, hiding behind all that catchers gear, the glove is the least of the strange gear the position requires. Still, the player who chooses that position must be ready to mix it up and to staunchly guard home plate. His plate. I love catchers, their equipment and especially a new catchers glove. They are efficient, ready to use and easy to break in.

Traditionally, a mitt has no fingers and are similar to an overstuffed, padded pillow resembling a flying saucer. That’s right. There are so few new innovations when it comes to web design and unlike other types of gloves, you don’t have a lot of fancy choices when it comes to colors. Black. Tan. Some shades of brown and that’s about it.

The bulkiness makes this the hardest glove to break in and the heaviest mitt on the field. The reasons for this are due to the velocity and speed of the pitch and the target area necessary for pitchers to zero in. These have no synthetic padding, at least the good ones don’t. None of that foam you find when the couch begins to tear. No. Quality baseball mitts are made with leather and for the catcher, you have standard five layers of padding in the construction.

Some good news is the types of leather now being used. Mizuno uses a high quality Kangaroo leather and in conjunction with a soft cow hide, this makes for a very soft glove. There is virtually zero break in time with one of these gloves.

Rawlings baseball gloves have been a part of baseball for decades and their contribution to new styling is the Heart of the Hide series. These mitts use Kipp Leather, a soft, close grain cow hide which is also very soft and durable.

Both these manufacturers offer customized baseball gloves, with options for shell back, trim and laces. You can request additional padding in the palm as well. If you decide the custom gloves are a little too pricey, and they are, consider the standard off the shelf selection. You don’t get a huge selection of design choices, but the quality is unmatched.

All the best gloves are hand sewn. Typical gloves measure about 30 inches in circumference for a beginning model to 34 inches for the professional glove. These are not measured like other baseball glove, which use the index finger to the heel, but instead around the outside.

New Gloves Make For Better Players.

Early examples of catchers mitts were nothing more than a whiff of protection-what we use as handball gloves today. Padded palms with half or three quarter fingers, these gloves must have been awfully painful to use in the late 1800′s.

Pride must have also been an issue because these early gloves were flesh color, making their presence virtually impossible to see from the bleachers.

Actually the first recorded baseball glove in use was worn by a catcher in 1870. You would imagine a catcher had to invent something this important. About 1890 an ex catcher patented the first catchers mitt, an odd invention of padding sewn around some old cloth. These early versions resembled a sofa pillow, flat and not at all effective except for curtailing pain. It was called a mitt because there were no fingers.