Quote:
Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve
Dude, didn't you play Little League? Every first baseman has a mitt. I had a fielder's glove for the rare times I played other positions (like the pitching fiasco  ), but I had a first baseman's mitt from LL MInors all the way up. And this was back in the 60's! My dad oiled it up, I put a ball in it, tied it up with a shoelace, put it in a pillow case, and had my mom run it over with the car a few times to break it in! Little League was, and still is, serious business. Nowadays, kids have designer everything....batting gloves, primo bats, gloves and mitts, and all sorts of gear.
Aside from it just being cool to have a first baseman's mitt, the big advantage it gives you is that you can scoop errant throws in the dirt much easier than with a fielder's glove, and it also gives a really great big target for the infielders. The first baseman can save his infield many errors by being skilled at the position. |
I played LL from 1960 to 1969. My first glove was a Christmas present from Grandma - a Del Crandel model catcher's mitt that looked like a pillow. The problem was I was a lefty. The next week Dad took me to a sporting goods
store and I got a Rawlings Mickey Mantle youth model with fat fingers and a brass button for the wrist strap. Dad caught every throw we ever tossed together with that mitt. One of my proudest moments: at the end if the year the LL coaches would play a game so the kids could razz them for some payback. Dad played second with that pillow mitt. He fielded 5 or 6 grounders flawlessly. The others dads were awed. I was beaming. A couple generations later I took my son to a Dick Birmingham camp. He had the middle fielders use a "paddle glove" to learn better fielding mechanics. Seeing that brought back warm memories from that day about 30 years earlier when Dad pulled off his Maz performance.
Nah, I played first, second, CF and pitched with a Trapeze model glove. I only recall a couple of guys who had a first baseman's mitt. They didn't seem to do any better than I did.