The Troops
April 3, 2009Here are a few of the gloves I used over the years. Generally, I would go through a couple a season. One gamer and one backup. It would take about 3 months of consistent bullpen work to break in one of these puppies to the point where they could be used during a game.
Sometimes I would invest a few months into a glove and find out that it didn’t have what it takes…it just never got the right feel.
I would use the “no break” old style glove at the beginning of every spring training to make sure my hands were working correctly. I used the flat glove and the little training glove as tools.
The older Mizuno glove on the upper left of the photo was the first glove I used in pro ball. I’ve kept it for sentimental reasons. I wore it when my team won the Southern League AA, and caught Bret Saberhagen’s no-hitter with it my rookie year. 
I used Mizuno gloves for the first 4 or 5 years of my career and then switched to Wilson because they had a nice product, were a pleasure to work with, and to be honest, they paid more.
I would estimate that I went through about 60-70 gloves over my career.
You’ll notice that the gloves in the photo have really dark pockets. SHHHH! Don’t tell anyone. They’re chock full of pine tar. I loved the stuff. Pitchers loved the stuff. It’s the best glove conditioner in the world. In a different post I’ll show you how to apply it. The tackiness of the tar completely stopped the rotation of an incoming pitch, gave me and my pitcher a great grip, and formed a film that protected the leather of the glove and prolonged it’s life.
I always used a thumb cast. I think the material I used was called orthopedicplasty or something like that. Basically it was this plastic plaster stuff that you would put in boiling water then mold around your left thumb. Then you’d put it under cool water and it’d harden. It helped protect my thumb when I received balls poorly (maybe one a year) or on foul balls. Cheers.
